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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maronite flag (2nd nomination)

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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 redirect‎ to Flag of Lebanon. While there was no issue with the re-creation, sourcing has not been shown to be sufficient to overcome the concerns raised. Suggest future attempts go through draft space (and potentially AfC or DRV) to avoid another AfD. Star Mississippi 15:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maronite flag

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Maronite flag (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Was recently redirectly through an AfD, then recreated by the lone voice in that discussion in favor of keeping. The same issues still apply. There is zero in-depth coverage of a flag by this name. Restored the redirect and was promptly reverted, so here we are again. Pinging all the editors who participated in the first AfD: Syphax98, Red Phoenician, OwenX, Toadspike, 4meter4. Onel5969 TT me 10:41, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lebanon-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 10:46, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Diff of additions since the redirect. It looks like several sources have been added. "Complete Flags of the World" is a one-sentence mention that the cedar tree has long been a symbol of the Maronites. "The orange and the ‘Cross in the Crescent’: imagining Palestine in 1929" is a good journal article, but where it mentions Maronites it is mainly focused on the cedar symbol and how it ended up on the Lebanese flag. "Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?" is the same, explaining why the modern Lebanese flag has a cedar on it. "Double vision in Beirut" is a one-sentence mention in an opinion piece. Page 262 of "Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups Around the World" does describe a "Maronite flag", but doesn't seem to (from my searching in the Google Books preview) spend more than a sentence describing the flag itself. "Flags and arms across the world" seems to have almost exactly the same text as "Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?", which does mention that the Maronites used a white flag with a cedar on it but not much more. I can't search in the "National Eucharistic Congress" source and jeancharaf.org seems to be a dead link. Searching for "drapeau" in "Voyage en Orient, Volume 1: Les femmes de Caire; Druses et Maronites", the only mention about this subject seems to be the sentence "Ce sont les signes qui distinguent les drapeaux des Maronites et ceux des Druses, dont le fond est également rouge d'ailleurs." This sentence doesn't have any context and is very confusing to me – I suspect there was an accompanying image not present in the linked version. The last two sources are cited for mentions of the flag, not analysis, so I presume they contain none.
Some of these sources may already have been present in the pre-redirect version, it's hard to tell. Anyhow, I still don't think the concept of a Maronite flag has received any coverage beyond passing mentions, mostly in sources explaining how the modern Lebanese flag came to be. Thus, I still believe this should be redirected to Flag of Lebanon. Toadspike [Talk] 17:00, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Charaf’s source is available via archive as sourced and National Eucharistic Congress is open to search. As for Nerval you have to read the entire quote: “—Allez où vous voudrez, dit-il; tous ces gens là sont fort paisibles depuis que nous sommes chez eux. Autrement, il aurait fallu vous battre pour les uns ou pour les autres, pour la croix blanche ou pour la main blanche. Ce sont les signes qui distinguent les drapeaux des Maronites et ceux des Druses, dont le fond est également rouge d'ailleurs.” Red Phoenician (talk) 02:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: What is the Wikipedia policy for dealing with this situation? Should @Red Phoenician have gone to deletion review even though the page was not actually deleted but rather redirected? Stockhausenfan (talk) 19:41, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion review (DRV) is only for reviewing whether the close accurately reflected the consensus reached in the discussion, not for relitigating the issues discussed in the AfD, so it is probably not what what Red Phoenician was aiming for. Also, if the recreated page is a duplicate of the original, it can be speedy-deleted under WP:G4, but the new sources probably make this different enough that G4 does not apply here. Toadspike [Talk] 01:00, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The preferred method for recreating a previously deleted page is to create a fresh Draft, then get it reviewed at AfC. I do see a lot of G4 tags in draftspace, but if I can see significantly improved (especially newer than the AfD) sourcing, I will decline the speedy. BusterD (talk) 20:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of AfD is not so unusual a situation. Red Phoenician's re-creation of this page (from redirect space) about a marginal topic was fine, six months after deletion. We always say redirects are cheap (meaning resource-effective). I have nothing to say on the merits of this AfD, but the re-creation is in-bounds, IMHO. If after this page is again redirected, the redirect may be protected, also IMHO (or RP may be pblocked from the space). BusterD (talk) 20:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The previous AfD had a clear consensus to redirect, and I don't think it should be possible to overturn it in this way (with limited engagement with the new AfD) without the restorer of the redirect having made any effort to demonstrate that the changes to the article now establish notability. I.e. I don't think it makes sense to close this as "no consensus" simply due to lack of participation, since there is a preexisting consensus. Stockhausenfan (talk) 04:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The original reasoning was that there were not enough sources to back the existence of a flag. Now that there are plentiful sources on multiple flags the goalposts have been changed to require sources of even more detail. Must there be an entire book dedicated to the history of the Maronite flag? The sources include many vexillological books/articles which should be adequate. Furthermore the claim that the Maronite flag is identical to the Lebanese flag is disingenuous for two reasons. Firstly, it implies that Lebanon and its flag were created solely for the Maronites and disenfranchises other religious groups of Lebanon. Secondly, this implies that the Maronite Cross flag and flag under Bashir Shihab II have any relation with the Lebanese flag which is not true and to paint them as such would be misinformation. Red Phoenician (talk) 02:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The goalposts have not been moved. The GNG and the requirement for significant coverage has not changed since long before this article was first created.
    I have not argued that the Lebanese flag is a solely Maronite flag, that other religious groups do not exist in Lebanon, or that we should be conflating different flags. I am trying to reflect the sources you have provided, which overwhelmingly discuss a Maronite flag as a predecessor of the modern Lebanese flag and rarely discuss a Maronite flag in detail or on its own merits. Toadspike [Talk] 12:52, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Flag of Lebanon: and page-protect so that we don't have to go through this yet again four months from now. Consensus was very clear in the November AfD, and none of the facts or sources have changed to vacate our previous decision. I assumed good faith in the previous AfD, but can't see this as anything other than POV-pushing now. Owen× ☎ 18:17, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: This page has enough sources to justify its existence
Maropedia1 (talk) 21:13, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 07:06, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Flag of Lebanon, though we still need an analysis of the Charaf source mentioned above. Red Phoenecian's clarification concerning the Nerval source does not change the assessment that the mention in this source is only passing and not enough to establish notability. Although there has been a flurry of keep votes recently, I'm still of the opinion that the arguments they presented are not substantial enough to overturn the preexisting consensus established in the earlier AfD. Stockhausenfan (talk) 07:19, 8 April 2025 (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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