Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/USS Letitia (SP-398)

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 delete. MBisanz ^talk 00:21, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

USS Letitia (SP-398)

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Cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes). Thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed. DrkBlueXG (talk) 17:56, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per... article? It is a boat that very little is known about, as per the article. It couldn't possibly pass WP:GNG, as it is barely known to exist! N.B. I'm pretty sure that [1] is an uncredited wiki mirror, so no WP:Copyvio. crh23 (talk)
Comment. I see no evidence of any hoax at all, what gives? Could the ship be the first Letitia covered at http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/TSS.Letitia2sistershiptoi.html? There is source North Atlantic Seaway by N.R.P.Bonsor, vol.3, p.1014 given there. That is a ship built 1912, converted to a hospital ship for WWI. It was wrecked near Halifax Nova Scotia in 1917 which does not preclude it being on the way to the U.S. The link uses "TSS Letitia" which uses the ship prefix TSS for "Twin Screw Steamer" which does not preclude it being a U.S. ship. The image at the link uses "HMHS" prefix for "Her Majesty's Hospital Ship" suggesting it was taken into British service, but conceivably it could have been transferred between services, starting or ending in U.S. service. [Update: From this source on Canada-related hospital ships which includes the image, it is clear that it was a British ship.] Or, as the current article suggests, it may merely have been considered for use by the U.S. Navy, per Navsource: in 1916 "the U.S. Navy began a registry of privately-owned pleasure craft and yachts that were available for patrol service in the event the United States was drawn into the conflict." Those ships considered are the ones listed at Navsource's "Section Patrol Craft (SP) and Civilian Vessels (ID) Index" page. And note at disambiguation page HMHS Letitia there is "HMHS Letitia (1912), which served during WWI", showing as a redlink entry. Which brings me to the following suggestion/vote, below. --do ncr am 22:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but move to HMHS Letitia (1912) and edit the article to describe the hospital ship (which is clearly notable: the link above, a chapter on it in a dive book, with interesting detail about its service at Gallipoli, and multiple mentions of soldiers shipped on it such as this. Let the Talk page show (including by link to this AFD), that there was a mystery USS Letitia listed in the U.S. Navy's register, which may or may not have been this ship. And I think it would be okay to mention that potential confusion explicitly in the mainspace article, too, perhaps in a footnote (simply stating: "In the U.S. Navy's register, there was a U.S.S. Letitia listed" without asserting any opinion). Handling the article this way keeps the edit history intact, giving credit properly if verification is obtained, and allowing future editors who might be looking for the U.S.S. Letitia a way to see what happened when the wp:SHIPS wikiproject editors were working their way through the Navsource list of ships, most of which are Wikipedia-notable. --do ncr am 22:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
20-Mule-Team Delete: Are you kidding me? There's nothing here to keep! Heck, I'd be fine with a A7 on the ground that there's no assertion of notability here. My suggestion to Doncram is that if he thinks there ought to be an article on HMHS Letitia (1912), he's free to create one, and blessings upon it. But I see no reason whatsoever to keep an edit history or attribute "credit" for an article with no meaningful content, with a subject that was a different ship in another country's navy. Ravenswing 06:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:18, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The principle of Wikipedia of giving credit to contributors through attribution in edit history is not to be so casually dismissed. Here there is some confusion, but it is clear that Mdnavman, who is still an active editor, identified correctly in 2010 that this was a ship considered by the U.S. Navy for use during World War I, and wrote carefully. The limited article said nothing incorrect. It never stated that the ship was in the U.S. navy, i.e. "in another country's navy", it said it was listed for consideration: no one is disputing that. Assuming the ship identified by the US Navy was in fact the hospital ship, which may yet be confirmed by additional sources, the move preserves edit history that was valid, and it avoids the affront of deleting an article created by an editor. In AFD process in general there should be more appreciation of work done, and more effort spent in preserving and developing rather than dismissing and tearing down. --do ncr am 18:29, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I find this credit perfectly easy to dismiss, thank you. It's a garbage entry of the sort that brings disrepute on Wikipedia as a legitimate resource, and the only difference between it and (say) a promotional article on an SPA's garage band is its use of grammar and formatting. The "OMG we need an article for every possible item on this list" mindset has led us to such pointless entries as Mali at the 2006 Winter Olympics and Scouting in the Vatican City, "work" worth neither appreciating nor preserving. Ravenswing 21:03, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree mostly, and I doubt the creator of this article cares about this old item, and I think I overstated a bit. My general concern about AFD is more about when the contributors involved are new and/or they don't have a substantial amount of other contributions surviving. I don't mind if this article is deleted. Still I happen to think it is a tad better to convert it to become an article on the hospital ship, or to be a redirect to a section for it within a list (say a List of hospital ships?). --do ncr am 01:46, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is List of hospitals and hospital ships of the Royal Navy with no mention of it, I am adding mention now. --do ncr am 01:55, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and Draft instead as my searches found nothing better and the current is still questionable for keeping and improving. SwisterTwister talk 04:51, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- We might possibly want an article on the Royal Naval hospital ship, but this is about an alleged US ship, whose very existence seems doubtful. We should not normally have articles on things of that kind. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:07, 10 April 2016 (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.