Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings

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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 no consensus. Much spirited debate on both sides, but opinions are pretty much split right down the middle. Neither side has made any killer argument which is backed up by policy. I doubt extending this another week would have any chance of a consensus emerging, so calling it NC. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:21, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings

Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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95% of this page is completely predictable statements from every country in the world. It serves no encyclopedic purpose. The important things are the ISIL claim of responsibility and may the Belgium, NATO and EU responses. A much truncated version of the material should be reintegrated into 2016 Brussels bombings and this page deleted. Legacypac (talk) 21:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep A discussion already going on here. Very premature and hasty nomination that does not follow
    talk) 21:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
    ]
I don't follow the Village Pump and a proposal there would not delete the article, only provide guidance for inclusion of info in some article. I also note that discussion is trending toward a conclusion that would support this proposed deletion. Legacypac (talk) 21:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
While the proposal may be helpful to the deletion case, it certainly wouldn't be used a black and white decision on the matter. There are plenty of articles like this that have both been kept and deleted in the past. Jolly Ω Janner 23:02, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry to admit that I am not able to propose any alternative because every option I could think of has significant drawbacks. Creating an article that summarises the reactions is original research: eventually, we will need to define a more or less arbitrary yardstick to assess which quotes are notable and which are not. Legacypac implied that the reactions from ISIL, Belgium, NATO and the EU are notable and the others are not. There are examples of clearly notable and clearly not notable quotes but the problem lies in the area between.
Most would agree that Saint Lucia's quote is not exactly making history. But as we go closer to Belgium the lines become blurred: The bombings in Brussels happened in a period where in Europe there is a significant humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe from the war and ISIS in Syria and other places. With this in mind, the quotes of the nation leaders of all involved EU states become very interesting, possibly even more than those coming from the other side of the Atlantic. Isn't it important to note that an EU member state reversed their agreement for refugee placement as a result of the bombings in Brussels? Similarly, the quotes from Middle East are particularly important as it is the region where ISIS is most active.
In the discussion in the Village Pump the option of moving this content to WikiQuotes has some clear advantages. I wish I were able to offer a good solution but I'm afraid I can't and this is why I propose to keep the article even in this state. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 00:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the
talk) 01:36, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
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Note: This debate has been included in the
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Note: This debate has been included in the
talk) 01:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
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  • This AfD should be closed as it is a current discussion going on at the same time about this article.BabbaQ (talk) 09:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is overgeneralization. What about for example, condemnation of attack by some Islamist groups, already considered terrorist organizations by most countries?
talk) 13:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
]
A small minority of the statements, for example from militant Islam groups, are meaningful when presented in prose and in context with the main subject. A list of platitudes, not so much.- MrX 13:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - It so totally predictable it might as well have been copied-and-pasted from the coverage of the previous Western tragedy. — Rwxrwxrwx (talk) 11:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jolly made an interesting proposal in the article's talk page, which in summary relates notability with secondary reliable sources outside the country related to the quote. I think that this AFD debate should be paused until this proposal has received adequate community feedback. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 12:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect or delete Most of this is expected in response to an attack such as this. Anything significant can be mentioned in the main article, only splitting if there is enough content. Peter James (talk) 15:02, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - This is not any desire of mine to have this article kept or deleted, but I would like everyone to note that there is a bit of a similar discussion on the policy village pump, which mentions this specific article. Parsley Man (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete of the indiscriminate, repetitive, useless, non-notable, largely meaningless listing of governmental statements. Merge the actually meaningful prose content. Reywas92Talk 07:28, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. While there are a bunch of predictable statements, it is useful to note which countries took what stand in the issue for future/relevant references. The article is well written and it can also be improved by adding a date on each statement, revealing how swift the reactions were.Sattar91 (talk) 15:10, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • A bullet list of quotes with pretty flags doesn't exactly make the article well-written, nor is that criteria for keeping an article. The citations all have dates and that's a ridiculous way to use the article. Even so, a better way to present the information you want would be prose in the main article as "Countries X,Y,Z immediately expressed condolences, while countries A,B,C took three days to issue them!" and "Governments condemned the attacks and opposed terrorism, but countries D,E,F said blah-blah-blah". A repetitive bullet point listing of 100+ statements, with the word "condemn" used 82 times, "condolence" 65 times serves no use to the reader. "A bunch" is an understatement - none of these reaction quotes mean a darn thing and few have any connection to that country; only actual actions taken are notable and relevant. Reywas92Talk 22:48, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@
WP:POTENTIAL for this one. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:43, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
]
I never said this article needed clean-up, I said the list of quotes should be deleted, and the rest of the content in prose form should be merged to the main article, as there isn't much of it, so the page could be deleted. If the useful information has potential for a full article, with a summary of the condolences, this page could be kept like the others that should also have the quotes removed. Reywas92Talk 16:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep While the article does contain a large amount of boilerplate condolence statements, there is some more substantial content including the impact on social media, debate over the media’s response and more substantial symbolic acts such as President Obama ordering that American flags be flown at half-mast and the numerous ceremonies throughout the world in which the Belgium flag is superimposed over national monuments. In regards to the more boilerplate quotes, I think most of the quotes should be transferred to wikiquote and removed while a map should be colored in to illustrate which states offered condolences. It would look something like the map to the right (except it would actually display which countries offered condolences rather than where Belgium has embassies). Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:51, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keep the article if you like content about the flag and social media, but it could easily be merged. Delete the non-substantial boilerplate statements. Reywas92Talk 16:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete but merge and redirect to preserve some of the references. As stated, reason number 14 "Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia", which leads onto WP:NOT "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". The essay at WP:REACTIONS is a great summary which matches my opinion. This article contains no encyclopedic content that is not already within the main article. Outright deletion may not be the best course of action, since the revision history may contain quotes useful for anyone wanting to collate a Wikiquote article. -----Also the Reactions article is a typical mindless, knee jerk Wikipedia article. It is the reason that Wikipedia is the joke website of the world. Some articles are good but you can always count on Reaction articles.------The contents that can be moved to the article are the reactions of the affected countries, which is Belgium and the countries that have a dead citizen and ISIL's reaction. So what about Fiji's reaction? Why not add the reaction of Mrs. Anderson, 3rd grade teacher? Whiskeymouth (talk) 05:37, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This should never have come to AfD. The nominator and most of those voting delete agree that at least some of the content merits inclusion in the encyclopedia. What they are proposing, then, is a merge and redirect that would maintain the editing history. No deletion is required. This is a content dispute and should be resolved through the usual content dispute channels. And a note to those suggesting "merge and delete", please see
    WP:MAD: "Pages that have been merged to other articles should almost never be deleted, since our copyright requires all authors to be publicly credited". Cmeiqnj (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
    ]
WP:MAD is merely an essay and neither policy nor guideline. It therefore carries no argumentative weight. WWGB (talk) 23:26, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
]
WP:MERGEREASON on the other hand is a communal consensus, which does hold weight. Jolly Ω Janner 23:42, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply
]
WP:ROUTINE Legacypac (talk) 17:19, 2 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.
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