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. (non-admin closure) Extraordinary Writ ( talk) 06:07, 20 October 2021 (UTC) reply

Roman Empire (disambiguation) (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log)

(Find sources:  Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The primary topic and Roman Empire (TV series) are the only legitimate entries, so WP:TWODABS applies. (How in the world are republics considered empires?) Clarityfiend ( talk) 04:56, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply

• Keep: I shaved off some of the miscellaneous additions that merely had an association with the city of Rome, rather than the Roman Empire. The additions of links to the Roman Republic and Kingdom can be useful to the common reader, who may not know the distinction between the three Roman states. Otherwise, it works fine as a disambig page since it ties together multiple similarly name articles. Curbon7 ( talk) 05:21, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 ( talk) 05:22, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Disambiguations-related deletion discussions. Curbon7 ( talk) 05:22, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply

• Keep per Curbon7; the "See also" section is also unusually helpful. In its current form, the whole thing is a useful contents-page for ancient Rome topics plus a few extras. Elemimele ( talk) 05:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep The page looks absolutely fine to me. Some of the lower entries stretch the point a bit and might be trimmed off, but that’s not an argument for deleting the whole thing. There’s no question that the term is regularly used to cover the upper entries. Mccapra ( talk) 06:31, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep This seems like a perfectly valid navigational page to me. The (strictly speaking, incorrect) use of the term "Roman Empire" to refer to other periods in the history of Rome is not uncommon, so it doesn't seem unlikely at all that somebody searching for the term "Roman Empire" would actually be looking for e.g. Ancient Rome in general or even the Roman Republic specifically (how common a misconception is it that Julius Caesar was an emperor of Rome? My feeling is that it is a very common misconception). With regards to the nominator's comment about republics being considered empires: that's not all that uncommon, because there's more than one sense of the word "empire". There is of course the sense which relates to the form of government, i.e. a state with an emperor or empress, which obviously precludes republics. But there is also the geopolitical (or foreign policy) sense of the term empire, which doesn't. The French Third Republic had a colonial empire – the (second) French colonial empire. The United States is a republic, but the phrase " American empire" is in common use by academics and laypeople alike. Even the article Roman Empire says about Rome that it was an "empire" (i.e. a great power) long before it had an emperor in the first paragraph following the WP:LEAD. Whether people should be using "empire" in the geopolitical sense is a question that can be debated, but there's no denying that they do. TompaDompa ( talk) 08:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply

• Does anybody know what dab pages are for? It's not a haven for "similarly name[d] articles", a "contents-page for ancient Rome topics" or to cater to the ignorant. Seriously, has anybody ever mistaken the Ottoman Empire for the Roman? Clarityfiend ( talk) 08:45, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply

• Keep There were lots of things that called themselves or have been called the Roman Empire Nick-D ( talk) 09:31, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep complex meanings - Byzantine empire also called themselves this so yeah, good page to keep Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 10:01, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
• Obvious Keep: I might quibble about the notion that the "Roman Empire" proper ended in AD 330 rather than 395 or 476—but that's a detail. Clearly the term can apply to Republican Rome following the Punic Wars, since Rome did in fact rule an empire; and from various points in the late third to the fifth century there could be said to be two Roman Empires (or one) depending on your point of view; the Eastern Roman Empire continued to flourish until 1453 (even though we more often refer to it as the "Byzantine Empire" after 476); the "Holy Roman Empire" was an entirely separate entity from the time of Charlemagne onwards, but could be confused with its "spiritual predecessors"; and there are other uses readers might encounter. So this page serves a necessary and useful purpose. P Aculeius ( talk) 12:41, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep. I think Clarityfiend has raised a fair question here but a page like this would help the readers and should not be taken too literally in terms of content or purpose. The page needs to be modified and enhanced to improve the user experience, not deleted. The Roman Empire began long before Augustus and, as P Aculeius says above, it strictly speaking ended in the 4th century, not the 5th. As for republican empires, I think it is fair to say that the USSR was an empire. No Great Shaker ( talk) 12:59, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
  • Clarityfiend has indeed raised an important point: whether we're here to cater for the ignorant. I'd say that as an Encylopaedia, yes we are: our readers include school-kids with very basic knowledge, crossword-solvers, random people who've watched a costume-drama and want to know a bit more, etc., and we should help all of them find good information even if their initial knowledge is wobbly, misguided and ambiguous. As a disambiguation page, this page may help to clear up their misunderstandings and point them to the information they're looking for, even if they don't know the correct search-term. Elemimele ( talk) 18:09, 13 October 2021 (UTC) reply
• Keep - The content of disambiguation pages should, as a matter of encyclopedic utility, be as broad as possible. I have read the guidelines on disambiguation pages, and I think that they are less than clear because they are written in an open-ended fashion. The current disambiguation page contains information that may be useful, as User: Elemimele says, to the ignorant. Any narrow interpretation of the disambiguation guidelines is either a mistakenly narrow interpretation, or an indication that the guidelines should be broadened. The nominator's objection seems to be the breadth. If there are specific issues, discuss them at Talk:Roman Empire (disambiguation). If there are guideline issues, discuss them at a policy page, bearing in mind that the guidelines should be broad. Robert McClenon ( talk) 19:26, 13 October 2021 (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.