Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Solar eclipse of May 12, 1706

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 keep. per WP:SNOWBALL (non-admin closure) CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 18:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Solar eclipse of May 12, 1706 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Simply put: what makes this event notable? Natural phenomena are not auto-notable, not unless they generate some coverage / research / etc. Solar eclipses have happened for millions of years, I don't think we need articles about all of them... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:08, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like most of the eclipses listed in Category:Total solar eclipses have no mention of coverage, etc. Indeed, there are *predicted* ones even a 100 years from now, that have their own articles. Should they all be deleted then?? Fmitterand (talk) 10:18, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am inclined to agree with the OP, Piotrus. There is nothing about this eclipse which is even remotely remarkable, other than it was an eclipse. I don't think we need to keep hold of this, and in a similar way, I don't think we need to keep hold of any of the other articles about eclipses as individual events. Maybe merge them into one page containing a List of Total Solar Eclipses. But on their own? Not worth it. Sunil The Mongoose (talk) 10:25, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It may not be notable as an astronomical event, but it had a scientific and historical impact. Flamsteed reported to the Royal Society that someone "took notice of a red streak preceding the emersion of the sun's body from a total eclipse ". Moreover "It need not too much time that common speak treated the eclipse as the “eclipse of Sun King” i. e. the eclipse of the power of Luis XIV, king of France". Should English Wikipedia let such juicy tidbits go to waste? :) 84.73.134.206 (talk) 18:27, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dear anon, the addition of Scientific and historical significance goes a long way to making this more notable. However, those two mentions in passing (we could probably find a few more) still don't seem to help that much. I would draw a line at a single reliable source discussing this eclipse. For example, did any scholar wrote as much as a paragraph on the relation of this eclipse to the reign of Luis XIV? If not, I see no reason not to endorse the merge into a list of solar eclipses as suggested by User:Sunil The Mongoose], where most eclipses can have a short paragraph about the few mentions in contemporary sources they generated. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of primary sources online relating Louis XIV to the eclipse, see e.g. this and this one where "prints gleefully note the total eclipse of the sun that occurred on 12 May 1706, supposedly the day Philip V abandoned his siege of Barcelona (which had been taken by the British six months earlier), presenting it as the total eclipse of the Sun King". In this French contemporary source the eclipse is interpreted as a "sign of the decadence of the two Crowns" (The Bourbon crowns of France and Spain). According to the Académie des sciences Louis XIV actually observed the eclipse with Cassini, who had predicted it. This admittedly borders on original research, but it points clearly to the historical impact of the eclipse, from English caricatures to French "histoires". Finally I found this essay, where the contemporary "political" vs. "scientific" interpretation of the eclipse in relation to Louis XIV is discussed in detail (pp. 32-35). 84.73.134.206 (talk) 08:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Consensus is that eclipses are notable. If you do not feel they are inherently notable, nominating a single one for deletion is not the way to handle it. Smartyllama (talk) 16:23, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Astronomy-related deletion discussions. NewYorkActuary (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Given the large number of sources discussing the event in conjunction with Louis XIV's campaign, even if eclipses aren't generally notable, this one seems to be. It also passes V and NPOV. NOR is more borderline, but not an overlarge problem in this case. Smmurphy^(Talk) 14:02, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per the above. XOR'easter (talk) 20:19, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Smmurphy. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 07:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Another obviously notable eclipse is Halley's eclipse of 1715. Actually this AfD caught my attention because a total eclipse visible in Europe at the height of the Scientific Revolution could hardly fail to have a notable scientific and historical impact. I've added further sources. In my opinion it would also be nice to have an article devoted to the Flash spectrum of the Sun or add a relevant paragraph to the Solar eclipse article. 84.73.134.206 (talk) 08:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:57, 11 April 2017 (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.