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 disambiguate‎. I see a consensus against keeping this as a standalone article, but the distinct meanings of the term makes it a poor candidate for redirect or merge. I'm moving LEvalyn excellent draft DAB into mainspace. Owen× ☎ 14:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Textblock (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Single sentence dictionary definition cited to a dubious non-sigcov source that does not help notability. I don't think this is the kind of topic that can possibly be its own article. Not opposed redirecting somewhere but no idea where - maybe some kind of glossary of publishing terms, but IDK if we have that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Bookbinding#Methods, which uses the term several times. Probably helpful to copy the def there as a parenthetical the first time the term is used, so I guess this would be a merge. Should not be a stand-alone article; the term is only useful within the context of bookbinding. Schazjmd (talk) 17:29, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Maybe keep. There's a lot of content on textblock construction in bookbinding books within google books discussing the various ways different cultures constructed and repair textblocks with bookbindings. An article would theoretically be possible if we were to compare different textblock constructions from say Japan versus the Middle East versus Europe, or even the way constructing textblocks has changed across time with different materials. I do think there is room to expand this beyond a dictionary definition. Some examples of sources: [1], [2], [3], [4], 4meter4 (talk) 19:24, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  The coverage you gave though is all in the context of the bookbinding process - it could maybe be two paragraphs and that would duplicate the book binding article. PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:35, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There would be some overlap... A redirect here is difficult though, because essentially the textblock is the main body of a book. This is a term that should be covered in the book article itself (which interestingly doesn't currently name the different parts of a book which I think is a fundamental content gap), as fundamentally books since the time of the codex can't exist without a textblock unless its a scroll. It's such a fundamental concept that to put it into the book binding article alone doesn't seem the right way to cover this.4meter4 (talk) 23:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair but it's not like there's any content to merge here, and it shouldn't have its own page. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:41, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When I created this page, it seemed to me that there should be some place on Wikipedia that covers this significant type of object, but I also was not sure the best way to do it. Something like a glossary or significant chunk of the bookbinding page seems fine to me. Dingolover6969 (talk) 05:31, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanderwaalforces (talk) 20:51, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to Bookbinding#Methods per above. This is a term within that process. Mangoe (talk) 21:40, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as WP:DICTDEF. This should not be redirected to bookbinding. If we had a specific article entitled Glossary of bookbinding terms or Parts of a book or something, we could perhaps link it to its specific entry there, but a redirect to Bookbinding#Methods is going to be a WP:ASTONISH problem. This term is not exclusively used in bookbinding; it is also used in Codicology, Palaeography, and other book/media-studies related fields. -- asilvering (talk) 23:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: While there is support for a merge redirect, decent arguments have been made that that would not serve our readers, so that could probably do with a bit more discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 23:38, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: There's no linkage currently to this term, except one via the redirect "book blocks" as a not-to-be-confused from block book, however usage can be seen at book block, textblock and text block (noting that there are at least four different senses for "textblock"/"text block" - a/ the "textblock" pages; b/ an actual block used for a block book; c/ the text area on a page (possibly printed using a block); d/ a chunk of text, particularly in desktop publishing). Ultimately, there should probably be either multiple disambiguated redirects and a DAB (to guard against mislinking); or a soft redirect to wikt:textblock and an expansion of that to cover the various usages. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 01:58, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Bookbinding, but the “Terms and techniques” section. After a perusal of academic sources in Google Scholar I really don’t see anything about textblocks that would support an article. (I just see descriptions of particular book objects, which mention their textblocks the same way they mention eg whether the pages are paper or vellum.) But we could explain the term next to where Bookbinding explains the related terms of codex and signature. I’m happy to execute a selective merge if that’s the way it goes, just ping me. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:48, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @LEvalyn, I'm not sure this is a good idea, given the multiple-definitions problem identified by @Hydronium Hydroxide (and me) above. We could create a DAB, but that itself would just be a collection of dicdefs; we could soft-redirect to wikt, but they've only got one of the four senses identified so far (I'm not confident there aren't more). -- asilvering (talk) 17:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Hm, that is a fair point. The "main chunk of a codex" definition was the only one I could see a sliver of sourcing for, which is why I was treating it as the "main" meaning -- but on reflection, maybe that's the same as saying the matter isn't clear enough for a redirect to go straight to Bookbinding. I took a moment to try to sketch in a usable DAB at Draft: Textblock DAB. I'd now argue to either keep as DAB or delete. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2024 (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.