Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/West Slavs

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. Wow, that was a lot to read for someone who isn't involved! It's time to close this as an AfD discussion, but let me be very clear that this discussion is not over. I recommend it continues on relevant article talk pages or project pages as the editors see fit.

The question I have to answer is purely about whether there is a consensus to delete the articles. The nominator has made this easy for me by effectively withdrawing the nomination during the discussion and instead arguing for a merge and redirect and/or various other remedies, none of which require the pages to be deleted as a prerequisite.

That leaves me with the technicality as to whether to close as "Keep" or "No consensus". As stated above, I don't believe the discussion around exactly what to do with these articles is fully over; there seems to be a rough consensus that outright deletion is not required, but other than that the options to fix, redirect, merge, etc. are still wide open and for that reason I am closing as "no consensus". WaggersTALK 13:21, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

West Slavs

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West Slavs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | )

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I am also nominating the following related pages because they have the same issues.

East Slavs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

South Slavs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This triple AfD is a follow-up to the previous AfDs on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/North Slavs, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eastern Orthodox Slavs (and Catholic Slavs), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muslim Slavs, each of which resulted in deletion for a combination of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH with rampant generalisations to imply an inherent connection between people who just so happen to be speakers of Slavic languages or a branch of Slavic languages, and often some other arbitrary trait such as religion or geography. These three articles are slightly different from the previous ones (such as North Slavs, which was ultimately merged into North Slavic languages) in the sense that the West, East and South Slavic languages are all widely recognised branches of the Slavic language family according to the consensus amongst linguists. However, we still need to ask the question whether there is any added value in writing separate articles about West, East and South Slavs as ethnic groups – with all sorts of alleged cultural or even biological traits that go beyond the field of linguistics – or whether such information should be regarded as either unscholarly or irrelevant, as it tended to be in each of the AfD cases above. The South Slavs (or Yugoslavs) stand out a bit from the other two groups, because during the 20th century the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were political realities (although they importantly excluded Bulgaria), and in some sense South Slavs or Yugoslavs were more than just a linguistic grouping, e.g. there were "Yugoslav citizens" and you could register as an "ethnic Yugoslav". However, I think the article Yugoslavs can still serve that function to talk about the South Slavs in any other than a purely linguistic sense. (And even if we may argue that "Yugoslavs" were or are more than just a linguistic reality, Bulgarians are still usually excluded from this concept, while it is possible to include groups such as Albanian-speaking Kosovars, Hungarian-speaking Serbs or Slovenes or Italian-speaking Croats, who were at least "Yugoslav citizens" for decades).

In any case, it is still unacceptable to have articles with sections such as South Slavs#Cities, a fine example of WP:UNSOURCED, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, rampant generalisation and irrelevance in one. Why, for example, does it list Plovdiv with its 338,153 inhabitants (allegedly as of 1 October 2015) in an article about South Slavs? The reasoning seems to be: (A) Bulgarian is a South Slavic language, (B) Bulgarian is the majority-language (demographically) / national language (legally) of Bulgaria, (C) therefore we may regard the entire population of Bulgaria as "South Slavs", (D) therefore we can count every single inhabitant of Plovdiv as "South Slavs". Evidently, only A and B are correct, C is misleading/generalising/oversimplified, and D is factually incorrect. Presenting this information in this way is therefore unacceptable. (I already added those templates OR and unsourced templates there two months ago when the North Slavs AfD was in progress, but nobody has fixed it in the meantime. I'm now using it to illustrate the issues with all three of these West, East and South Slav articles). Another common feature in these articles is the mention of bits and pieces of history or culture of a specific country/state or ethnic/linguistic (sub)group, which aren't necessarily representative of the West, East or South linguistic branches. E.g. why does it state "For many centuries Poland has had close ties with its western neighbors, with the Polish ruler Bolesław I the Brave declared by Holy Roman Emperor Otto III as Frater et Cooperator Imperii ("Brother and Partner in the Empire")."? What does that have to do with "West Slavs", other than that in modern times (19th and early 20th century) the Polish language has been classified as a West Slavic language? (In the same way, Polish things were taken as representative of "North Slavic culture" generally in the former "North Slavs" article, and the AfD regarded this as OR/SYNTH). Or, why should we take the painting File:Slavic girl.jpg alias File:Ukrainian girl by Nikolay Rachkov (2nd half 19 c., Chernigov museum).jpg as representative of "East Slavs", just because Ukrainian was identified as an East Slavic language in modern times? If anything, it says something about Ukrainian culture specifically, not about some broader purported "East Slavic culture" generally, as it appears to have nothing to do with linguistics, but only with clothing. Employing linguistics to make such statements or present images in this manner is simply WP:SYNTH.

In short, when we remove all the OR, SYNTH, irrelevant and unsourced stuff,

• all valuable material from South Slavs can be merged into South Slavic languages or Yugoslavs;
• all valuable material from West Slavs can be merged into West Slavic languages; and
• all valuable material from East Slavs can be merged into East Slavic languages.
  

None of these articles seems to have sufficient added value as separate articles on their own, just like all previous AfDs with a Slavic theme above have already demonstrated. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 23:17, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Some very valid points are raised above about synth and OR, but it remains the case that the three terms are widely used in scholarship, not just as linguistic divisions, but as ethnic divisions. The articles all have citations on various points not relating to language. From the first page of a google books search, I got the following non-lingustic works with the terms in their titles:

There were many more which mentioned East, West, South Slavs in text. From the above, it is clear that the terms definitely get the most use in discussions of Slavic history in the early Medieval period, before the current national divisions had appeared, but not exclusively so - we see it being used for discssions of literature in Tempest and of modern diasporas in Cetinich. No sources have been provided by the nominator for the claim that these terms are not recognised as ethnic groups. And actually, if sources were to be provided that showed that these groupings are now deprecated (I'm not clear whether this is the case), there would still be reason to have these articles, as we have articles for (e.g.) Hamites. Additionally, I think there is a problem with merging South Slavs (ostensibly an ethnic group) into Yugoslavs (a former citizenship and nationality). Furius (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I am quite willing to be corrected on things I may have gotten wrong, and educated on things I don't know yet. You seem to have provided quite some RS to support the idea of non-linguistic scholarly validity of these terms, so I'll check them out. On the other hand, "No sources have been provided by the nominator for the claim that these terms are not recognised as ethnic groups" is irrelevant. The burden of proof is on whoever would like to claim that these three linguistic groupings constitute ethnicities, not on me to show that they are not. As a matter of fact, I've just skimmed through each of the three articles for the word 'ethnic' or 'ethnicity', and each time it comes up, it is in a sentence without a source at the end. I'm not joking. There is 1 exception, namely Riasanovsky & Steinberg in East Slavs#Post-Kievan period speaking about "significant linguistic and ethnic differentiation among the Rus' people into Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians". I can't check that source without buying the book, but the fact that "linguistic and ethnic" are mentioned in the same breath seems to confirm that these always go hand in hand, and never separately. But perhaps the 8 sources you have provided above will contain enough evidence, we'll see. You've got a point that it could be kept as a separate article if it is a significantly developed but now deprecated concept like Hamites. Then again, in the case of North Slavs we found that it was not, and decided to merge it into North Slavic languages. So I'm open to many possibilities. And yes, "South Slavs" and "Yugoslavs" don't always mean the same. The question is rather whether South Slavs merits a separate article from South Slavic languages, or not. If not, it depends on which bits and pieces of South Slavs we're talking about whether to merge it into South Slavic languages or Yugoslavs (or both, or neither). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:37, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Živković et al. 2013 is quite interesting. There seems to be a widespread understanding that you can categorise a broad range of archaeological findings as "Slavic" or "South Slavic", suggesting that their material culture was distinguishable from surrounding tribes that spoke different languages. Similar attempts to connect e.g. the La Tène culture to the Celts have proven to not be as straightforward as early scholars thought. This would make it a scholarly valid concept that means more than just a linguistic subdivision. This could be a valuable source for articles like early Slavs. Nevertheless, whenever the book uses the word 'ethnic', in almost invariably refers to language.

Cetinich 2003 seems to use "South Slavs" mostly as an ad hoc grouping of immigrant groups based on their nationalities and the geographical proximity of their countries of origin. Cetinich emphasises the differences between these groups in terms of 'traditions': 'Through their long history as distinct peoples, the South Slavs have forged their own traditions, which in the 1991-1995 Yugoslav wars of secession proved stronger than their sense of a shared experience.' If anything, I think this book is taking the position that there is no such thing as a South Slavic ethnicity, but that there are 6 ones ("Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims, and Macedonians", thus notably excluding Bulgarians but also Gorani etc.) that were only briefly united in Yugoslavia but remained distinct peoples (plural). In practice, 'South Slav' is synonymous with "Yugoslav" according to Cetinich. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 20:16, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

These readings of the quotations seem like synthetic interpretations to me. Your conclusion doesn't obviously follow from the Cetinich quote. Being "distinct peoples" doesn't preclude having a shared ethnic identity. Croats, Serbs, etc all belong to a Slavic ethnicity despite being distinct peoples, after all. In fact, most ethnicities contain multiple distinct peoples. Having acknowledged that Živković et al. use South Slavic as an archaeological category, I think any case for deletion collapses - it is not for wikipedia to double guess that category, but for the scholarly literature to do so (which wiki could then cite).

When there are no sources for a concept then the burden is on retentionists to provide sources. When a concept is widely present in scholarly literature, then the presumption is that we will have an article, so I think the burden to show reliable sources saying that the concept doesn't exist shifts to the proposer of deletion. Both of these sources (and the others) are providing material that is connected to language, yes, but also material that is separate from it.

Here's an article on "East Slavic identity" as a political concept written 2004 ([1]). It shows that East Slavic identity is a complicated, contested thing, but it is a thing that really is discussed (and that chapter alone provides more than enough material for an article). Furius (talk) 12:00, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough; could you summarise how you interpret Cetinich's view of what the South Slavs are, and how his book could serve to justify the standalone article South Slavs?

Whether people have a 'shared ethnic identity' or not is a rather subjective question. E.g. many Serbs or Croats etc. could adhere to civic nationalism, which proceeds from 'a political identity built around shared citizenship within the state' and 'has no ethnocentrism'. To them, neither language or religion is a primary factor in their idea of shared identity, and whether they 'all belong to a Slavic ethnicity' (across borders) is not as obvious as it might seem. Although I haven't read Cetinich's book in detail, I think his views are more representative of civic nationalism than ethnic nationalism.

My acknowledgement that the term 'South Slavic' seems to be used by Živković et al. 2013 as an archaeological category does not (yet) mean that therefore "South Slavs" merits its own article. As a matter of fact, this same source was dismissed as evidence that "North Slavs" merited their own article. User:Austronesier stated: "This volume only has one passing mention of the term "North Slavs" (yes, only one on p.330), but doesn't define it nor treat it as a topic, which is needed here to actually verify the definition." (See Talk:North Slavs#Sources for discussions). I haven't yet checked whether Živković et al. 2013 do define "South Slavs", "East Slavs" or "West Slavs", or treat it as a topic in order to verify the definition (I should have done that right away). As with "North Slavs", if it is mostly just an ad hoc grouping of archaeological findings associated with Slavic-speaking tribes based on geography, this doesn't really lend credibility to the idea that they are an ethnic group. To look at it in another way: why is the "South" part relevant, e.g. the meso level, rather than just the micro (tribal) level or the macro (Slavic language family) level? Why can't such information be mentioned in an article like early Slavs?

Furthermore, does it support the notion that "South Slavs" still exist today as an ethnic group in the 21st century? Note that such claims are not made about, say, "West Germanic peoples" or somesuch; West Germanic peoples is just a redirect to West Germanic languages. Nobody is seriously suggesting that "West German(ic)s" (Westgermanen) are (still) an "ethnicity" in the early 21st century that as such having anything more than a linguistic subdivision in common.

Your claim that "When a concept is widely present in scholarly literature, then the presumption is that we will have an article, so I think the burden to show reliable sources saying that the concept doesn't exist shifts to the proposer of deletion." is incorrect per the WP:ONUS policy. Quote: "While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." In other words, the burden of proof (onus) is on you. The 2004 Wilson article might help you, so I think you could give it a try. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:12, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Do Živković et al. 2013 define "South Slavs", "East Slavs" or "West Slavs", or treat it as a topic, in order to verify the definition? This test set by Austronesier in the North Slavs case should now be applied to the other three terms as well. As the document is 469 pages long, I'll try to search for these terms using ctrl+F to save time. This pdf may not recognise every instance of this combination of letters. I'll try to find as many as I can.

• "West Slavs": I'm getting just 5 hits by ctrl+F-ing "West Slav". All of them are found in the first few pages of "The Typology of Slavic Settlements in Central Europe in the Middle Ages. According to Latin Sources (8th – 12th Centuries)" by author Bojana Radovanović. The phrases "West Slavs" and "West Slavic" disappear as the chapter progresses. Note that in the Preface on pages 11 and 12 no mention of "West Slavs/Slavic" is made; the stated aim of the chapter is "to highlight the typology and terminology used to determine Slavic settlements in Central and Western Europe in the Early Middle Ages (9th– 12th centuries)." It is purely "Slavic" + a selected region.
  • p. 346: "The aim of this chapter is to delineate the typological patterns of West Slavic settlements in medieval central Europe (8th – 12th centuries)." Sounds promising, but not a definition yet. As the chapter proceeds, we'll see that the term 'Slavic' is used mostly by Radovanović. 'West Slavic' in this case seems to refer to anything Slavic on the present territories of "present-day Poland, Czech Republic and Germany" (p. 346) or "the vast territory stretching from the present-day Czech Republic to the Baltic coast" (p. 347), not to a Slavic grouping distinct from other Slavic group by anything other than geography. (Slovakia is not explicitly mentioned by Radovanović, which one might expect as it is a present-day country with a West Slavic language speaking majority).
  • p. 348: "Various reasons have led to this diversity of the information relevant to a typology of West-Slavic settlements in medieval central Europe." No definition.
  • p. 349: "The earliest account on the West Slavs contained in Frankish chronicles comes from the chronicle of Fredegar, in the passage describing the conflicts between the Franks and the Slavs in the first half of the 7th century.[1300: Fred. Chron., 144, 154, 155; Gesta Dag., 410.]" No definition. I don't know where to find any easily accessible copy of the Chronicle of Fredegar, but the 1997 Curta paper is probably the online source that currently quotes it most extensively in the original Latin. It doesn't seem like Fredegar makes West, East or South subdivisions amongst the "Slavs", a term he uses very ambiguously and unclearly. In any case, this sentence from Radovanović doesn't help us.
  • p. 349–350: "In ARF (ca. 770 – 840), the West Slavs were said to have been present at the Council of Frankfurt in 822, whereupon the representatives of orientalium Sclavorum, id est Abodritorum, Soraborum, Wiltzorum, Beheimorum, Marvanorum, Praedenecentorum[1301] were enumerated among the participants as well." What does the ARF say exactly?

Ipse vero peracta autumnali venatione trans Rhenum ad hiemandum in loco, qui Franconofurd appellatur, profectus est. Ibique generali conventu congregato necessaria quaeque ad utilitatem orientalium partium regni sui pertinentia more solemni cum optimatibus, quos ad hoc evocare iusserat, tractare curavit. In quo conventu omnium orientalium Sclavorum, id est Abodritorum, Soraborum, Wilzorum, Beheimorum, Marvanorum, Praedenecentorum, et in Pannonia residentium Abarum legationes cum muneribus ad se directas audivit.
But he [Louis the Pious], having finished his autumn hunting, went across the Rhine to spend the winter in a place called Franconofurd [Frankfurt]. There, having assembled a general assembly, he took care to deal with the nobles, whom he had ordered to be summoned for this purpose, in a solemn manner, with the necessary matters pertaining to the welfare of the eastern parts of his kingdom. In which assembly of all the Slavs from the east, that is, the Abodrites [Obotrites?], the Sorabs [Sorbs?], the Wilzos [Veleti/Wends?], the Beheims [Bohemians?], the Marvans [Moravians?], the Praedenecenti, and the Abari [Avars?] residing in Pannonia, he heard embassies addressed to him with presents.

The word orientalium literally means "of the east". It refers to 'orientalium partium regni sui' 'the eastern part of his kingdom' mentioned in the previous sentence, so ARF talks about the Slavs in the east of Louis the Pious' kingdom, not the 'East Slavs' as we understand them in modern linguistics. In other words, orientalium refes to the political geography of the Frankish Empire and is not an ethnolinguistic designation. So it is curious why Radovanović would explain this as a reference to 'West Slavs', especially because the text literally says "of the east"; at least 'East Slavs' would have been more likely than 'West Slavs' because this opposite cardination direction is actually mentioned in the source. I think she has either misread this passage (unlikely, she knows Latin), or already associated these tribes with the modern West Slavic languages for other reasons (more likely), or simply labels any Slavic tribe in the studied region "West Slavic" (most likely). The passage itself certainly cannot identify these tribes as 'West Slavs'.

• p. 350: "As it has already been mentioned, the Frankish authors have yield ed numerous information on the Polabian Slavs and the West-Slavic tribes dwelling in the valley of the Laba river, in the region delimited by the Baltic Sea in the north; Saxony in the south, Frankish Empire in the west and Poland in the east." No definition. It confirms my suspicion that Radovanović labels any Slavic tribe in the studied areas as "West Slavic" by pure geography, regardless whether or not the sources mention a cardinal direction.
  

That's it for "West Slavs" and "West Slavic" in Živković et al. 2013. It fails Austronesier's definition test. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Shows the Penkovka culture, Prague-Korchak culture, Ipotești–Cândești culture, Kolochin culture.

Shows the 'Volyntsevo culture' (Volincevo), Saltovo-Mayaki, Luka-Raikovetskaya and Kolochin culture

• "East Slavs": I'm getting 10 hits by ctrl+F-ing "East Slav". All are found in chapter 5: "The Typology of Early Medieval Settlements in 5 Bohemia, Poland and Russia" by Irena Cvijanović.
  • p. 11 (Preface): "Based on research of a great number of towns and villages in ancient Russia, five cultures can be determined: East Slavic culture, Prague Korchak, Penkovka, Ipotesti-Candesti and Volincevo culture." These are based on "comparison between written sources and archaeological finds". We'll see what "East Slavic culture" means.
  • p. 290 repeats the same sentence.
  • p. 321: "The seat of the Early Medieval state of East Slavs was moved from the middle Dnieper to the region between Volga and Oka, suitable for developing agriculture.[1220] The region around Moscow and in Volga-Oka region is less attractive, but still similar to the region around Kiev on the middle Dnieper. The centre of power shifted to the principality of Moscow that imposed its might in the end.[1221]" What author Irena Cvijanović does here is loosely, colloquially referring to the Kyivan Rus' and Muscovy. Obviously the inhabitants of both states weren't just "East Slavs", or encompassed all areas inhabited by "East Slavs". Either way, she doesn't define what she means.
  • p. 327: "Modern Belarus, area in which East Slavic languages are spoken today, was populated with East Balts (ancestors of Lithuanians) up to the tenth century and the Baltic ethnicities did survive even after the Slavic expansion." No definition.
  • p. 336-337: "Archaeological research and written sources confirm great changes in the first millennium when it comes to the development of houses among the East Slavic communities that formed the economic basis of the Kiev state. Animal husbandry was the main occupation of the East Slavic population between the Dnieper and Carpathians between the eighth and tenth century, like in the period before." (...) "The East Slavic tribal communities were divided into tribes led by princes (knez), ruled by the grand prince." No definition.
  • p. 339: "The sites of Penkovka culture probably constitute the core of the East Slavs, maybe Antes." No definition. Strangely, the Penkovka culture is postulated as "the core of the East Slavs", but the "East Slavic culture" is something else.
  • p. 343: "Five cultures are distinguished in Russia: East Slavic culture, Prague Korchak, Penkovka, Ipotesti-Candesti and Volincevo. Cultures in the forest steppe zones of Ukraine were the Prague-type, Penkovka, Zhitomir and Raikovets. The East Slavic culture was under the influence of Saltovo culture of Khazars, Bulgars and Alans." These are the last two mentions of "East Slav" in Živković et al. 2013 that I could find with ctrl+F. At no point was "East Slavic culture" defined, but this final sentence says it was influenced by the Saltov Culture. I've looked up two maps here on the right, and I think what Cvijanović means by "East Slavic culture" is actuallya synonym for Kolochin culture? There's barely anything to be found about "East Slavic culture" in the context of archaeology on the Internet, except for a passing mention in Todor Chobanov (2021): "....archaeological realities of the east Slavic culture (Penkovsk-Pastirsk),..". This indicates that "East Slavic culture" and "Penkovka culture" are synonyms; Cvijanović did mention on p. 339 that the latter was supposedly "the core of the East Slavs". So what does all of this tell us? Very little, to be honest. At most it says something about a probable geographic-archeological predecessor of the Kyivan Rus'. This is interesting, but has nothing to do with East Slavs in the 21st century as a supposed ethnolinguistic group. Most importantly, it fails Austronesier's definition test. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:40, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

PS: "East Slavic culture" might be a common term in Russian academia, perhaps as a synonym of any of the archaeological cultures mentioned above, but ru:Категория:Археологические культуры России on Russian Wikipedia doesn't mention it, and when I try to search for it, I can't find it. "East Slavic culture" has no entry or redirect on Russian Wikipedia, and is never mentioned in the context of archaeological cultures as far as I can tell. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:12, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

• Concluding with "South Slavs" and "South Slavic". I'm getting 34 hits by ctrl+F-ing "South Slav", that's a lot more than the other two. Let's see how the terms are used.
• p. 2, 4, 6. Title and contents, not useful.
• p. 9: 'The neat fabric of antique organization of space marked the concepts of confrontation or coexistence of various spatial layers in the territories occupied by South Slaves [sic].' No definition, not useful.
• p. 10: 'The first chapter titled The Urban Landscape of Early Medieval Slavic Principalities in the Territories of the Former Praefectura Illyricum and in the Province of Dalmatia (ca. 610 - 950) represents a research of the urban development in the South-Slavic principalities.' No definition yet; 'South-Slavic' seems to be used as a shorthand for socio-economic processes in 'Slavic' political entities, the study of which is geographically limited by the territories of two former Roman provinces.

'Relying on these data, the deep-rooted opinion in the historiography that the Southern Slavs did not develop any urban centres in the early stages of their history is challenged and the new approach in research is based on a new question: What is considered to be an urban centre?' No definition. It seems to be an ad hoc geographic grouping of various principalities during a certain time. 'Southern Slavs' seems different from 'South Slavs' perhaps.

• p. 16: 'In his famous work De administrando imperio (DAI), Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos dedicated eight chapters to the South Slavs (chapters valuable work XXIX-XXXVI).' This is followed by the same list of principalities of p. 10, and then 'Research of the urban development in the South-Slavic principalities has relied on two types of sources: archaeological evidence and written documents of different types.' That is common in anthropological / proto-historical studies of all early societies in Europe; this says nothing.

footnote 7 describes a disagreement between Ćirković 1998 and Živković 2008 (the author himself) whether kastra oikoumena were 'administrative centres of the earliest territorial organization among the South Slavs' or 'the earliest ecclesiastial organization of the Roman Church.' So that question remains unresolved; the author rejects it.

• p. 17: 'There is a deep-rooted opinion in the historiography that the Southern Slavs did not develop any urban centres in the early stages of their history.' Repeats p. 10.
• p. 25 is a linguistic footnote.
• p. 26: 'The župans as elders or the ruling class governing the South Slavs are mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitos.' No definition, probably another ad hoc grouping of the 'Slavic' principalities in the Balkans.
• p. 29 footnote 68: 'According to the typology of the earliest churches in the Early Medieval principalities of the South Slavs, there were two main centres: Spalato and Ragusa, from where architectural features spread out into the Slavic hinterland.' Idem.
• p. 31: 'Altogether, around the year 850, there were 40 cities in the principalities of the South Slavs. Of these 40 cities, names of 16 are of a Latin or Greek origin, and 24 of Slavic. Therefore, at least 40% of the cities in the South-Slavic principalities were re-built on the sites where the ancient cities once stood, and they retained their former Latin or Greek names in slavicized forms.[76]' The footnote says: 'For the overall linguistic situation in the Balkans, especially regarding the slavicization of the names of the Roman settlements, see: H. Mihăescu [1983]'. Another ad hoc geographic grouping of all things Slav in the Balkans as 'South Slavic', without defining this term in any other way than geography (as opposed to other things Slav not in the Balkans).
• p. 34: 'The urban situation in the principalities of the South Slavs (ca. 850 –950) seems even more complex than has ever been thought.' No definition.
• p. 37 uses the terms 'Principalities of South Slavs', 'South Slavic principalities' and 'South Slavic states', in which 'South' seems to relate purely to geography and nothing specifically ethnic or cultural or even linguistic, as 'the first Slavic states in the region' is used as a synonym of the aforementioned three terms.
• p. 63: 'Nevertheless, the importance Nin had for the South Slavic principalities on the eastern Adriatic, never decreased.' No definition.
• p. 65: 'The diocese of Biograd was one of the episcopal sees of the early medieval northern Dalmatia, situated in the realm of the first South Slavic prinicipalities.' No definition. It's worth repeating Austronesier's test at this point: The text needs to define "South Slavs" or treat it as a topic. That's not what we're getting: the subject of this text are principalities that are labelled 'South Slavic' because their dominant populations were Slavic, and they were located in the Balkans. What distinguishes "South Slavs" from other Slavs apart from geography is not clarified. There doesn't even seem to be an assumption that they are different, as simply "Slavic" is also repeatedly used to refer to the same principalities.
• p. 69: 'The early medieval cathedral church of the diocese of Knin stands as an important and curious case among many cathedral churches constituted in the first Early Medieval South Slavic principalities of the eastern Adriatic region and its hinterland.' No definition.
• p. 102: 'The Early Medieval episcopal sees and their cathedral churches on the eastern Adriatic coast and its hinterland at the time of the first South Slavic principalities presented here, portray a more certain picture of spiritual life and the development of ecclesiastical organization in this region throughout the given period.' No definition.
• p. 103: '..the foundations of the first political entities that were forming on the territories inhabited by the South Slavs;..' No definition.
• The remaining references are all similarly useless.

My initial, poorly-informed assessment that 'There seems to be a widespread understanding that you can categorise a broad range of archaeological findings as "Slavic" or "South Slavic"' was wrong. Upon closer inspection, that is not the case at all. 'West', 'East' and 'South' appear to be almost always purely geographial classifications of archaeological findings or literary associations. The closest we really get to defined some sort of ethnolinguistic Slavic group is Cvijanović's assertion that there has been some sort of "East Slavic (archaeological) culture" that is either synonymous with the Penvokva culture, the Kolochin culture or another one, or is one that she has just postulated by herself. The fact that these geographical classifications of archaeology and written sources coincide with modern linguistic subdivisions is almost an accident. No effort is taken to define these three groups, nor to distinguish them from each other apart from geography. Therefore, I think the title of this whole book is a misnomer, and cannot serve in any way to support the assertion that these three groups exist as ethnic, ethnolinguistic, cultural-historical etc. groups. It was interesting, but did not yield what Furius was looking for. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Wait, so the source gives you a list of South Slavic principalities on p. 10 and you conclude that you've not been given a definition? This whole "test set by Austronesier," which I've never encountered before and is not a policy, seems to be just a way to reject large swathes of secondary source material as somehow not good enough. But the vast lists that you've generated here only convince me that there is plenty of secondary source material on all three of these groupings, which has nothing to do with language. Furius (talk) 17:10, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, the text does not give a definition of what/who "South Slavs" are, other than those Slavs living in the Balkans. When you read the texts closely, as I have done above, linguistic or 'ethnic' subdivisions of the Slavs don't matter in these texts on the West/East/South Slavic level. 'West/East/South' denote geographic regions, not ethnic divisions. They do not follow the linguistic subdivision-based definitions in the opening sentences of the West/East/South Slavs articles. E.g. if some person born on the Baltic coast and raised to speak Polish somehow got lost, or deliberately moved, and settled in the Balkans, these authors would count that person as a "South Slav", because they are a Slav in the South. Similarly, present-day Slovak speakers in the Serbian Vojvodina or Croatian Syrmia would be classified as "South Slav" as well, due to sheer geography.

What I call 'Austronesier's test' is simply the application of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#Good definitions and Wikipedia:Verifiability: 'Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic (...) A good definition is not circular, a synonym or a near synonym, overly broad or narrow, ambiguous, figurative, or obscure.' + 'All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed.' By this very AfD, I am challenging the definitions given in the lead sections of each of these articles, namely that I don't think they merit separate articles from the articles about the West/East/South Slavic languages, unless someone can make clear that "West/East/South Slavs" are more than just linguistic subdivisions. To overcome this challenge, 'a reliable source that directly supports the material' is needed. In this case, that means a reliable source that gives a proper definition of what/who "West/East/South Slavs" even are. If all the sources say is "South Slavs are speakers of South Slavic languages", then there's no reason for a separate article on "South Slavs" apart from South Slavic languages. All three articles start similarly:

• "The West Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak the West Slavic languages."
• "South Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak South Slavic languages..."
• "The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages..."

Apart from the fact that this may actually be in violation of non-circular definition per WP:NOT (because it really doesn't say much that the reader didn't already know), neither these definitions nor the rest of the articles really seems to establish what these groups have in common other than belonging to the same linguistic subdivision, nor do these three articles differentiate these three groups from each other by other means than linguistics (unless when generalisations/OR/SYNTH are invoked). As I said above, simply invoking geography by citing Živković et al. 2013 to stress the differences between West, East and South doesn't work, because then the Syrmian and Vojvodinan Slovaks are incorrectly classified as "South Slavs". (You can probably think of other reasons why this won't work, such as having to disregard millions of Slavic speakers living in diasporas around the world, and thus not "inhabit[ing] a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula", another one of these geographic generalisations that just doesn't hold up).

So in summary, I think that there are very few, if any, arguments left for not merging these articles into the three languages articles. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:23, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

The part about a people from the Baltic or Slovaks being called South Slavs is incorrect, that just doesn't happen in reality. You need to actually source these kinds of eyebrow-raising claims that are completely inconsistent with general scholarship on the topic. This is a waste of everyone's time. I'm going to stop replying here because it's apparently unproductive. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:40, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

You've just proven the point I've been making to Furius. Furius wanted to use Živković et al. 2013 as a source to establish what West/East/South Slavs are. I've given two reasons why that is impossible.

1. Živković et al. 2013 fails Wikipedia:Verifiability because it does not 'directly support the material', because it does not provide a definition of what West/East/South Slavs are.
2. (This part is a thought experiment) If we were to apply the descriptions that Živković et al. 2013 use for West/East/South Slavs, then we would end up with purely geography-based classifications by which, for example, Syrmian and Vojvodinan Slovaks would be labelled "South Slavs" because they live in the Balkans. That is incorrect, of course; Slovaks speak a West Slavic language, no matter where they live. I agree with you that these would be 'eyebrow-raising claims that are completely inconsistent with general scholarship on the topic'. Yet this is what would happen if we were to use Živković et al. 2013 as a source for what West/East/South Slavs are, as Furius proposed.

I think Furius may not have read the book very carefully in the way that I have attempted to do here in public above (so that you can read along) by analysing every single quote featuring the words "West/East/South Slavs/Slavic" in that book, or may not be familiar with Wikipedia's policies on these issues. Either way, unfortunately it's just not a very good source for establishing what West/East/South Slavs are, other than linguistic subdivisions.

You're free to disengage from this AfD whenever you want, of course; I hope you have a nice day. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:17, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

• I am positive you can't get rid of the South Slavs at least (Oppose), because that concept as such does indeed exist in scholarship and in the vernacular of the said peoples. It also exists separately from Yugoslavs, and conflating these two is a curious lapse in due diligence. Feel free to clean up the article from any weird synthesis, but the concept itself is fairly mundane and this rationale doesn't work for it. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:42, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, "South Slavs" and "Yugoslavs" don't always mean the same. The question is rather whether South Slavs merits a separate article from South Slavic languages, or not. If not, it depends on which bits and pieces of South Slavs we're talking about whether to merge it into South Slavic languages or Yugoslavs (or both, or neither). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:37, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

We have numerous precedents of way less generally notable concepts having standalone articles, so I wouldn't be anxious to do such a merge. To double-check, I did a search of just the Croatian scientific bibliography and got 24 title/keyword matches for the South Slavic languages and 22 title/keyword matches for the South Slavs, and the overview indicates that the latter is not about linguistics, so the WP:POTENTIAL seems to be there. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

That there are allegedly worse articles is not a valid defence per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. (In fact, one could argue the opposite. When North Slavs was nominated for deletion, its author argued both ways that, because the articles West Slavs, East Slavs and South Slavs existed, the article North Slavs also had a 'right' to exist, and that if the latter were deleted (which it was; we merged it into North Slavic languages), all four should be deleted). We shouldn't be using this type of argument. As I stated in the nomination, there may be reasons why "West Slavs", "East Slavs" and especially "South Slavs" (because of Yugoslavia) have greater notability and scholarly validity than "North Slavs". Still, these three articles suffer from a lot of the same issues that the other Slavic-themed articles faced and were ultimately deleted/merged for. Therefore, I decided it would be a good idea to have this discussion and see what people would think about it. Both you and Furious have already acknowledged at least some of these issues.

The WP:POTENTIAL essay has a good point in this case, but I would contrast that with WP:OVERLAP and the WP:REDUNDANTFORK policy (which could support merging if there is not enough to say about these three groups beyond linguistics), and the WP:ONUS policy (e.g. it must be demonstrated - by you or someone else - that information from these 22 search results on South Slavs has added value for South Slavs as an ethnic concept separate from South Slavic languages and Yugoslavs).

Ultimately, my goal is to make Wikipedia better. These articles do not necessarily have to be deleted/merged in my opinion, although I think that is a better option than keeping them as they are. If we agree that they can be kept as standalone articles, but need to be seriously cleaned up and rewritten, then that would also be a good solution. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's why I'm not using that type of an argument :) AFD should be applicable to South Slavs in case we need to WP:TNT it, otherwise it's just a matter of cleanup. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:05, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, I've done a lot of cleaning up today, and I have to admit that South Slavs is the best-written article of the three by far. However, that is entirely due to 3 sections:

• South Slavs#Early South Slavs, overlaps with Early Slavs
• South Slavs#Middle Ages, overlaps with Slavic migrations to the Balkans
• South Slavs#Genetics, strongly overlaps with Slavic_migrations_to_the_Balkans#Genetics (and Slavs#Genetics). This section is a WP:REDUNDANTFORK.

In other words, this information doesn't need a "South Slavs" article, it is already present in or could be moved/merged to other existing articles.

The other sections are all poorly written.

• South Slavs#Geographic distribution should be merged into Slavs#Population
• South Slavs#Languages should be merged into South Slavic languages
• South Slavs#Terminology could be moved to Yugoslavs and/or South Slavic languages
• South Slavs#Early modern period can be deleted entirely as unsourced

There's no reason for a standalone South Slavs article in my opinion. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

The West Slavs article is the worst.

• I've done my best to rewrite the History section, but it's a minefield. Curta has a lot of interesting things to say, but mostly doesn't talk about Slavic groups as "West Slavs"; she's concerned with whether tribes can be considered Slavic in general or not, and doesn't really go into subdivisions. She challenges the idea that Samo's kingdom was a Slavic state. The Great Russian Encyclopedia entry also doesn't actually claim that "Wends" or Venedi applied to West Slavs, it merely says it could have been. At any rate, this whole section can best be merged with early Slavs per WP:OVERLAP, because it's about all Slavs and in late antiquity / early middle ages.
• West Slavs#Linguistic grouping should be merged with West Slavic languages#Classification per WP:OVERLAP
• The rest of West Slavs#Groupings should probably be merged with List of ancient Slavic peoples. They already strongly WP:OVERLAP, but there are mixups with alleged modern ethnic West Slav groups.
• West Slavs#Population should merge with Slavs#Population per WP:OVERLAP

There's no reason for a standalone West Slavs article in my opinion. Each section already has a better place in other articles. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:01, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I still disagree, this is too convoluted for its own good, you're citing vaguely applicable policies to construct an argument, but I'm not convinced that this is more coherent than simply having an article about the South Slavs, which has been the organic consensus for decades now. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:17, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Just because an article has existed for a WP:LONGTIME doesn't mean it should be kept indefinitely. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:06, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

The point of mentioning age is not the age itself but the organic consensus, which I thought would be clear from the explicit mention of it, but apparently not :D --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:17, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by 'organic consensus' then? I'm looking through the archives and it looks like you're the only user who ever uses that phrase in years lol. The point is irrelevant though because consensus can change (WP:CCC). Some articles are nominated for deletion but kept, but upon a second AfD deleted anyway. A previous consensus can always get overturned no matter whether it is "organic" or has been "for decades". Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:45, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

In addition to important feedback by Joy with whom I agree I think there are additional arguments for standalone South Slavs article (even if TNT may be needed). I would like to add that article Yugoslavs would not be the most appropriate article to transfer all the relevant material from South Slavs article. In fact, there are scholarly sources and debates criticizing exactly that practice of Yugocentrism in which Bulgaria is more often than not ignored in the field of South Slavic and Albania & Romania in Balkan studies. Also, at least South and East Slavs categories were historically widely (ab)used and in South Slavic case today there is clear distinction (despite original synonymous meaning and wide overlap) in describing something as South Slavic or Yugoslav. We should also keep in mind that we have three distinct topics in this category and that certain conclusion in one case can't directly preclude outcome in another case (for example, conclusion on quite obscure North Slavs concept and widely known South Slavs concept). The argument about implied existence or non existence is clear, but it can be applied to any imagined community- we should therefore just see if there is imagination of South Slavs (in academia or popular culture) or we are fabricating it here without reference.--MirkoS18 (talk) 10:01, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

MirkoS18, I agree with what you say, but I think all these points have already been made. We already agreed that "South Slavs" and "Yugoslavs" don't always mean the same (in fact, I stated that in my nomination, and that particularly Bulgarians are often included in the former, but excluded from the latter). I'm not advocating for deleting Yugoslavs, that article should stay. I've also said that, in case of a merger, we should transfer materials from South Slavs to either South Slavic languages, or to Yugoslavs, or both, on a case-by-case basis. And I've stated from the beginning that we should critically examine all such imagined communities concepts like North Slavs, but the decision on North Slavs or the other Slavic-themed AfDs will not logically lead to the same decision in these three cases per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. These earlier AfDs are just a good reason to also critically examine these three concepts, and whether they do pass the same test, or also fail it. I'm open to many possibilities, but at the moment I think merging is the best solution. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:22, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, the conflation of all three in the same AfD is definitely not helping here. I can't imagine any AfD closer will be happy to go through all these walls of text about multiple variously intertwined topics. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 17:18, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, if I only nominated "West Slavs" and waited until that process was done to nominate "East Slavs" etc., wouldn't that be unfair? They're all kind of in the same league. When I first nominated "Eastern Orthodox Slavs", someone immediately pointed out that I should also nominate "Catholic Slavs" then, so I did. Even then, I still argued that I thought "Muslim Slavs" was a separate case that might be tenable, but someone else nominated that too and it got deleted as well anyway. Those were relatively simple AfDs, but the community shared my point of view. Then I stumbled upon "North Slavs", and that got much more complicated, with the author also saying we should also AfD "West/East/South Slavs" then. I foresaw that that would make it all way too big, because the latter are widely accepted linguistic subdivisions whereas "North Slavs" is not, so we decided to do that AfD separately first and see what the result would be. Now that that is over and done with, I have simply taken the next step, and it made sense to nominate all three in one go, just like "Eastern Orthodox/Catholic/Muslim Slavs". I knew that a lot of people might disagree with it (at least initially) because they are widely accepted linguistic subdivisions; but I think I had to explain that that doesn't mean we need to have separate articles about them that also treat them as ethnic groups, which is a far more contentious claim that does not appear to be widely accepted by scholars. If that requires a lot of text to explain, then so be it; I think it's important that Wikipedia consistently follows its policies and guidelines to make sure we are not misleading our readers. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:59, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

The thing is, the South Slavs article didn't say anything to the tune of "they're a single ethnic group". You make it seem like it's promulgating some sort of an egregious fallacy and has to be eliminated as a whole, but that's not necessarily the case. It's like a content dispute insta-escalated to AfD, which is excessive. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:17, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, as I said above, 'These articles do not necessarily have to be deleted/merged in my opinion, although I think that is a better option than keeping them as they are.' From the very beginning, I've been open to scenarios in which these articles might be kept. However, the South Slavs article did imply, and still does, that "South Slavs" either are an ethnic group, or a group of ethnic subgroups. It already starts by having the Template:Infobox ethnic group on the top left (already a faux pas if it's not an ethnic group), which has the parameter "Related ethnic groups". The "People and countries" section had the sentence "Among South Slavic ethnic groups that are also nations are the Serbs, Bulgarians, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians and Montenegrins." The Religion section had the passage: "Today, the majority of South Slavs are Orthodox Christians; this includes most Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs and Montenegrins. Most Slovenes and Croats (including Bunjevci and Šokci) are Roman Catholics. Bosniaks and some other ethnic groups (Gorani, Ethnic Muslims) and sub-groups (Torbeši and Pomaks) are Muslims. Some South Slavs are atheist, agnostic and/or non-religious." At the bottom, the Template:Slavic ethnic groups is included, in which "South Slavs" is one of the three main categories of "Slavic ethnic groups". Finally, the article is in three categories: "Category:South Slavs, Category:Ethnic groups in the Balkans, and Category:Slavic ethnic groups". Incidentally, the first category is a subcategory of the second and third category. The article text doesn't have to explicitly say anything "South Slavs are a single ethnic group" in order to describe, imply, categorise and frame it as such, which it does everywhere. If you agree that they are not a single ethnic group and shouldn't be treated as such, I would presume you would at least agree that the article needs to be thoroughly rewritten to avoid giving that impression, would you not? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:51, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment  Really insightful and important points about synthesis here. Thank you. I’m most familiar with East Slavs. I doubt that deletion is warranted, but important to recognize what the subjects are and are not. East Slavs are not an ethnic group. They are a grouping of several nations and their ancestral peoples, and I think the current intro to the article is problematic in treating them as an identity that existed as Rus people and continues to exist. In fact, they were a geographical grouping of separate tribes, modern nationality didn’t exist until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and has been fraught with colonial relationships to this day. The language needs to be rewritten with some discipline and reference to good sources. Perhaps a useful rule of thumb, especially for any post-Medieval context, is to replace the vague noun “East Slavs” and use the adjective with well defined nouns: East Slavic or Eastern Slavic tribes, people, polities, nations, lands, or East Slavic-language speakers. —Michael Z. 23:08, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with most of what you say. I don't think "East Slavs" exist as an ethnic group today, just as a linguistic subdivision.

  • An argument can be made that "East Slavs" is a legitimate synomym for the Rus' people, which no longer exists. In fact, the History section (which is almost completely unsourced) claims that "Rus' people" is its 'Main article' (along with Ruthenians). At the same time, it refers to early Slavs, Saqaliba, Rus' Khaganate, and Kyivan Rus', each of which is better written. The question then is what added value the East Slavs#History section has for Wikipedia, if there are several other articles that explain the same information much better?
  • East Slavs#Modern East Slavs is unsourced, and I think we can best merge it with Slavs#Population per WP:OVERLAP.
  • East Slavs#Genetics strongly overlaps with Slavs#Genetics and Slavic migrations to the Balkans#Genetics. This section is a WP:REDUNDANTFORK.

  There's no reason for a standalone West Slavs article in my opinion. Each section already has a better place in other articles. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:21, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with your points about the East Slavs article. Are you still advocating deletion? If so, where does the name redirect.

  Perhaps it becomes a WP:SETINDEX, with a brief overview of each historical and modern Eastern Slavic group with main-article links. —Michael Z. 15:08, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  I'm arguing for merger (so perhaps I shouldn't have made this an AfD because I'm technically not arguing for 'deletion'?), namely merging the text of particular sections of these three articles with other existing articles, as I've proposed in my most recent comments. My proposal is that the pages themselves become redirects to West Slavic languages, East Slavic languages, and South Slavic languages respectively. But I'm open to other options. I'm not sure if a set index articles is a good solution here, but maybe a disambiguation page is better than just a redirect to the languages articles? E.g.:

  "East Slavs" may refer to:

  # East Slavic languages speakers

  # Old East Slavic speakers

  # Rus' people

  == See also ==

  # Kievan Rus'

  # Rus' Khaganate

  # Ruthenians

  # Saqaliba

  How about that? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:55, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  There are a lot of direct links to East/West/South Slavs as in modern people, and readers will want to read about them as a whole, but will find themselves reading about their languages or ancestors, then somehow find other information about them hidden in sections of various articles. The fact you can basically take articles apart and merge everything to various sections of other articles doesn't mean the article is worthless, it's a compilation of all this information in one place. -Vipz (talk) 18:37, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  You are making two assumptions: (A) East/West/South Slavs exist as "modern people" (rather than just as linguistic groups), and (B) readers want to read about East/West/South Slavs as "modern people", therefore an article about them should exist. I don't think we can make either assumption. As a matter of fact, the modern encyclopaedia Winkler Prins (2002) states: "Today the Slavic peoples are only connected by language affinity, see Slavic languages." They also think that the designation "Slavic" is only linguistic in the modern world, and otherwise only refers to history. That refutes A. Moreover, the fact that some readers may want to read about East/West/South Slavs as "modern people" may be nothing more than wishful thinking. We cannot wish facts into existence; it must be based on WP:RS and not WP:OR. The other Slavic-themed AfDs demonstrate that Wikipedia does not have to accept the existence of certain articles just because there are people that may want to read them. We've got policies, guidelines and conventions to adhere to. That refutes assumption B. Finally, I can also turn your last argument around: the fact that you can basically compile information from lots of places into one standalone article doesn't mean that article has added value. WP:REDUNDANTFORK and WP:OVERLAP indicate that we should avoid such things. WP:SECMOVE states: "You should migrate content when it would be better suited on a different article in Wikipedia. If it's already on that article, you should delete the duplicate information or start a discussion. If the two pages are similar you should consider Merging the two articles." Each of these things is applicable here, and that's exactly what I am proposing here. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:49, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  My concern is about all the direct links to "South Slavs", "East Slavs" and "West Slavs" on present articles. East, West and South Slavs are linguistic groupings of modern people, and nothing more, as you state. "South Slavs" is simply a shorter way of writing "South Slavic speakers", etc. for other groupings. Thousands of articles will point to the new disambiguation pages after the move and will need to be relinked individually. If they stay like that for long, some readers will expect to read about something and not land on the right page. -Vipz (talk) 21:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  Would the new disambiguation pages link to all specific sections the old articles' content was merged to? I'm not sure whether section-linking in disambiguation pages is a practice on Wikipedia. Readers may want to know about, say, geographical distribution or genetics of South Slavs specifically when they land on the South Slavs disambig. -Vipz (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

  You make some good points. Section linking does not happen very often in disamb pages, but I sometimes do it, especially in the See also section. I considered Michael Z.'s points and suggested disamb pages as an alternative for set index articles, but I think that for the navigational and maintenance issues you've pointed out, this is not a very good option. My preference is therefore still for making these three pages redirects. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:00, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

  All of those links are WP:NOTBROKEN and should not be 'fixed'. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:18, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I have thoroughly checked, verified, rewritten and updated Slavs#Population. Any demographic stats regarding "West Slavs", "East Slavs" or "South Slavs" can better be put there to prevent WP:OVERLAP. I've therefore redirected West Slavs#Population and South Slavs#Population to Slavs#Population. By the way, it is notable that in all census data and estimates I went through in the past 4 days (16–19 August), I have not once seen any inhabitants of any of the countries self-identify as a "West Slav", an "East Slav" or a "South Slav". Some do identify as "Slav", "Slavic", "Yugoslav", even "Czechoslovak" or "Serbo-Croat", but nobody uses the cardinal directions for ethnic self-identification. (Sidenote: after 3 decades of naming disputes, the 2018 Prespa agreement specified that "North Macedonia" must be the official name of the FYROM, but the inhabitants were still allowed to call themselves just "Macedonians", without the "North" bit. They didn't want to, and Greece eventually respected their wish.) I think this is further evidence that these linguistic subdivisions aren't really considered ethnicities in practice. People usually self-identify with the national, regional, or (rarely) the language-family level (there are even Canadian and American diaspora communities who still self-identify as Czechoslovaks, after a country that doesn't exist anymore, similar to Yugoslavs). But not with the linguistic subdivision level. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:23, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

  This is too simplistic of an argument, census self-identification is orthogonal to having an article about these concepts. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  Well, it's not a very strong argument, I'll grant you that, but I regard it as circumstantial evidence. If these "ethnic groups" really exist, why doesn't anyone self-identify with any of them in practice whenever a census comes along that asks millions of people about their ethnic identity? I find that rather curious. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 14:31, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  It’s evidence that these are not national identities. A secondary source explicitly saying so would be better if we wanted to state this in an article, but nevertheless it helps us understand the meaning and usage of the name for purposes of defining the subjects of articles. —Michael Z. 15:32, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Perhaps I will repeat here the opinion of the majority that the nominator does not seem to have fully understood the topic, and among Wikipedia readers there really are people who want to read not about East/West Slavic languages, but about East/West Slavs. By the way, I have long dug up several sources and wanted to create a section "Culture" in each of the articles (emphasizing some differences between West Slavs, for example, from south or east ones). Sincerely, Emenrigen (talk) 13:19, 22 August 2022 (UTC).

  I'm always open to being corrected on anything I have gotten wrong. Could you explain what I may have missed about the topic? I should point out that the number of users in WP:SUPPORT of keeping, merging or deleting an article is irrelevant, because "AfDs are not about voting. The outcome of a deletion discussion is determined on the basis of reference to policies and guidelines, not a simple headcount." If you can cite which policies or guidelines are in support of keeping these pages as standalone articles, you could be building a case. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 15:27, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

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.