Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination): Difference between revisions
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*'''Keep''', it is a notable topic and there are enough [[WP:RS]] sources out there written on the subject: most notable probably the books on the subject [[Red Holocaust (2009 book)]], [[The Black Book of Communism]] (published by [[Routledge]] and [[Harvard University Press]] respectively), and also [[Helen Fein]]'s chapter on [http://books.google.com/books?id=n4TaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Soviet+and+Communist+Genocides%22&dq Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide] in Genocide: a sociological perspective {{ISBN|9780803988293}}, [http://books.google.com/books?id=LQfeXVU_EvgC&pg=PA91&dq Communist mass killings] by Benjamin A. Valentino, [[R. J. Rummel]] who has been using a term [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22communist+democide%22&btnG=Search+Books communist democide]; not to mention "Communist genocide" alone gives [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Communist+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books 441] returns on google books and [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=20&q=%22Communist+genocide%22 75] on google scholar. Should be more than enough resources out there to write a good article about the subject that was titled "Mass killings under Communist regimes" as a compromise descriptive title derived via consensus, see [[Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/FAQ]] —[[User:Nug|Nug]] ([[User talk:Nug|talk]]) 20:40, 22 November 2021 (UTC) |
*'''Keep''', it is a notable topic and there are enough [[WP:RS]] sources out there written on the subject: most notable probably the books on the subject [[Red Holocaust (2009 book)]], [[The Black Book of Communism]] (published by [[Routledge]] and [[Harvard University Press]] respectively), and also [[Helen Fein]]'s chapter on [http://books.google.com/books?id=n4TaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Soviet+and+Communist+Genocides%22&dq Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide] in Genocide: a sociological perspective {{ISBN|9780803988293}}, [http://books.google.com/books?id=LQfeXVU_EvgC&pg=PA91&dq Communist mass killings] by Benjamin A. Valentino, [[R. J. Rummel]] who has been using a term [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22communist+democide%22&btnG=Search+Books communist democide]; not to mention "Communist genocide" alone gives [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Communist+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books 441] returns on google books and [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=20&q=%22Communist+genocide%22 75] on google scholar. Should be more than enough resources out there to write a good article about the subject that was titled "Mass killings under Communist regimes" as a compromise descriptive title derived via consensus, see [[Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/FAQ]] —[[User:Nug|Nug]] ([[User talk:Nug|talk]]) 20:40, 22 November 2021 (UTC) |
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Hi, I just wanted to comment that this is a very bad argument. Finding sources that use the phrase "[adjective] genocide", or similar terms, is extremely easy. Besides "Communist genocide", there are also hundreds of Google Books results for "Capitalist genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Capitalist+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], "Conservative genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Conservative+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], "Liberal genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Liberal+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], "Republican genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Republican+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], "Democratic genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Democratic+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], "Right-wing genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Right-wing+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], "Left-wing genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Left-wing+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books], or even (to use a different kind of adjective) "European genocide" [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22European+genocide%22&btnG=Search+Books]. But Wikipedia doesn't have a page called [[Mass killings in Europe]] for example, despite the fact that mass killings certainly HAVE happened in Europe and there are even books about them. Like this one for instance: "The Holocaust and Genocides in Europe" [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Holocaust_and_Genocides_in_Europe/BhvWNK-NwAgC] (a book grouping together the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, mass killings in the Soviet Union, and the genocides in the former Yugoslavia). You can find scholars grouping together genocides and mass killings in all sorts of ways: by ideology, by continent, by cultural area, by religion, by historical period, and so on. The fact that a few have grouped Communist mass killings together is as relevant as the fact that others have grouped European mass killings together. |
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::The first source you cite is a chapter of a book entitled 'Genocide: A Sociological Perspective', and as such rather illustrates my point regarding how mass killings are generally discussed in academia - mass killing as a general topic, rather than one partitioned by the ideology of the perpetrators. As for Valentino and Rummel, these are the same authors that have been repeatedly cited for many years in discussions over the disputed article, and the fact that they are being cited yet again surely illustrates just how isolated from mainstream historiography they have become. And as for what the article FAQ says, that isn't even remotely relevant to an AfD discussion, for far too many reasons to be worth explaining... [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 21:37, 22 November 2021 (UTC) |
::The first source you cite is a chapter of a book entitled 'Genocide: A Sociological Perspective', and as such rather illustrates my point regarding how mass killings are generally discussed in academia - mass killing as a general topic, rather than one partitioned by the ideology of the perpetrators. As for Valentino and Rummel, these are the same authors that have been repeatedly cited for many years in discussions over the disputed article, and the fact that they are being cited yet again surely illustrates just how isolated from mainstream historiography they have become. And as for what the article FAQ says, that isn't even remotely relevant to an AfD discussion, for far too many reasons to be worth explaining... [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 21:37, 22 November 2021 (UTC) |
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:*'''Note to Admin:''' [[User:Levivich]], who !voted to delete, appears to be blocking any attempts to improve the article[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes&diff=1056618706&oldid=1056617047]. It is entirely permissible for those who support keep to attempt to improve the article while it is under AfD. On the other hand, edits during an AfD by those who support deletion is disruptive as it can be construed as [[WP:GAME]] to make an article worse to facilitate deletion. --[[User:Nug|Nug]] ([[User talk:Nug|talk]]) 21:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC) |
:*'''Note to Admin:''' [[User:Levivich]], who !voted to delete, appears to be blocking any attempts to improve the article[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes&diff=1056618706&oldid=1056617047]. It is entirely permissible for those who support keep to attempt to improve the article while it is under AfD. On the other hand, edits during an AfD by those who support deletion is disruptive as it can be construed as [[WP:GAME]] to make an article worse to facilitate deletion. --[[User:Nug|Nug]] ([[User talk:Nug|talk]]) 21:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC) |
Revision as of 23:41, 22 November 2021
Mass killings under Communist regimes
- Mass killings under communist regimes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
- (Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
And under its previous name:
- Communist genocide (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) (moved at start of process of second AfD to "Mass Killings")
- (Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)
The article begins:
<!-- Introduction, criteria, and their criticism --> Various authors have written about the events of 20th-century communist regimes, which have resulted in excess deaths, such as excess mortality in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Some authors posit that there is a communist death toll, whose death estimates vary widely, depending on the definitions
… that is, the title is not in bold, it is explicated. The title is a synthesis, a pat answer to any tangentially relatable proposition. The proposal is that the page be deleted, with any verifiable facts that are not borrowed from the other articles be moved there. Some notes, more as I remember, but will argue they support deletion: the article has existed in one form or another for many years; a series of previous AfDs have been proposed [10+ years ago]; that article traffic is significant; there is currently another open dispute resolution underway; personally have every reason to despise Communist regimes {as I define them]. ~ cygnis insignis 14:22, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Delete as synthesis, and a violation of WP:NPOV policy. There is no doubt that 'communist regimes' as defined in the article have perpetrated many atrocities, but that isn't the issue. The question that needs to be asked is whether 'Mass killings under communist regimes' is a legitimate subject for an encyclopaedic article. And I would have to suggest that the article in question does little to justify that claim. A few writers have certainly seen it as a legitimate subject for discussion, but by and large, credible mainstream histography tends to neither lump all 'communist regimes' together as a subject for scrutiny when discussing 'mass killing' or to treat them as some sort of special case requiring unique analysis. Proper historiography discusses events in context, and without simplistic presuppositions that events are driven by any specific ideology. As the endless disputes on the article talk page make entirely clear, the article, and what exactly it is that it is supposed to be discussing, has long been a subject of contention amongst Wikipedia contributors. Rather than citing credible histographic sources on such subjects, the debate has instead revolved around exactly what constitutes a 'mass killing', or a 'communist regime'. Debate almost invariably focussed on contributors own arguments and opinions, since sources discussing this are sparse, and generally on the fringes of histography. It is absolutely imperative that Wikipedia covers mass killings, regardless of who perpetuates them and what their motivations were, or are, but this article, with its loaded title and its endless wars over what exactly Wikipedia contributors can or cannot include as a 'killing' is exactly the wrong way to go about it. What Wikipedia should be doing is covering, in relevant articles about specific subjects, such atrocities, sourced to mainstream academia, and written in a manner that does not spoon-feed readers over-generalising and ideologically-driven conclusions that the sources concerned do not themselves support. Let the facts about individual events speak for themselves, and let readers decide for themselves whether they wish to blame 'communist regimes' for such crimes, or to instead blame them on the broader fallibilities of a humanity that was perpetuating such atrocities long before 'communists' arrived, and may well, if a more enlightened discourse isn't available, be perpetuating similar atrocities long after such 'regimes' have gone. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:00, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Delete in sum per WP:SYNTH, as explained in some great detail in the nom, the above !vote, the long talk page discussions, and the prior AFDs. I am looking for multiple RS that give significant coverage to (1) "mass killings" (and not "excess deaths" or anything else) under (2) "communist regimes" (and not "Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot"; not some communist regimes, not "totalitarian states", but "communist regimes"). I do no believe there is enough RS that exists that covers this topic. Rather, the article is based on sources that talk about death in communist regimes generally, or mass killings by specific regimes that called themselves communist (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot). But to combine it by ideology, without sources that explicitly do so, is SYNTH. At bottom, the view that the ideology of communism is somehow inherently violent is WP:FRINGE anti-communist POV pushing. Levivich 15:47, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Keep, it is a notable topic and there are enough WP:RS sources out there written on the subject: most notable probably the books on the subject Red Holocaust (2009 book), The Black Book of Communism (published by Routledge and Harvard University Press respectively), and also Helen Fein's chapter on Soviet and Communist Genocides and Democide in Genocide: a sociological perspective ISBN 9780803988293, Communist mass killings by Benjamin A. Valentino, R. J. Rummel who has been using a term communist democide; not to mention "Communist genocide" alone gives 441 returns on google books and 75 on google scholar. Should be more than enough resources out there to write a good article about the subject that was titled "Mass killings under Communist regimes" as a compromise descriptive title derived via consensus, see Talk:Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes/FAQ —Nug (talk) 20:40, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Hi, I just wanted to comment that this is a very bad argument. Finding sources that use the phrase "[adjective] genocide", or similar terms, is extremely easy. Besides "Communist genocide", there are also hundreds of Google Books results for "Capitalist genocide" [1], "Conservative genocide" [2], "Liberal genocide" [3], "Republican genocide" [4], "Democratic genocide" [5], "Right-wing genocide" [6], "Left-wing genocide" [7], or even (to use a different kind of adjective) "European genocide" [8]. But Wikipedia doesn't have a page called Mass killings in Europe for example, despite the fact that mass killings certainly HAVE happened in Europe and there are even books about them. Like this one for instance: "The Holocaust and Genocides in Europe" [9] (a book grouping together the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, mass killings in the Soviet Union, and the genocides in the former Yugoslavia). You can find scholars grouping together genocides and mass killings in all sorts of ways: by ideology, by continent, by cultural area, by religion, by historical period, and so on. The fact that a few have grouped Communist mass killings together is as relevant as the fact that others have grouped European mass killings together.
- The first source you cite is a chapter of a book entitled 'Genocide: A Sociological Perspective', and as such rather illustrates my point regarding how mass killings are generally discussed in academia - mass killing as a general topic, rather than one partitioned by the ideology of the perpetrators. As for Valentino and Rummel, these are the same authors that have been repeatedly cited for many years in discussions over the disputed article, and the fact that they are being cited yet again surely illustrates just how isolated from mainstream historiography they have become. And as for what the article FAQ says, that isn't even remotely relevant to an AfD discussion, for far too many reasons to be worth explaining... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:37, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Note to Admin: User:Levivich, who !voted to delete, appears to be blocking any attempts to improve the article[10]. It is entirely permissible for those who support keep to attempt to improve the article while it is under AfD. On the other hand, edits during an AfD by those who support deletion is disruptive as it can be construed as WP:GAME to make an article worse to facilitate deletion. --Nug (talk) 21:31, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Please don't disrupt this discussion with claims about other contributor's behaviour elsewhere. Raise it at ANI or whatever if you like, but not here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:41, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- It is a valid concern that is correctly called out here on what is and is not permissible. --Nug (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- If it is a 'valid concern', it would surely make more sense to raise it somewhere where an admin might see it in a timely fashion. Though before doing that, I'd recommend reading up on talk page procedure, and on who is or isn't permitted to edit articles being discussed at AfD. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Reverting to a lead from two months ago, which has serious VERIFY issues (stating all events were mass killings as fact, etc.), and has been acknowledged as problematic at WP:DRNMKUCR, are by no means an 'improvement.' Plus, the AfD is about this stable version, and it makes no sense whatsoever to edit while the AfD is ongoing. Davide King (talk) 22:12, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- The AfD isn't about any specific 'version'. It is about whether the topic (if there actually is one, outside of Wikipedia and a few marginal writers) should have an article at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- I agree, but I wanted to point out that is the current version addressed in the AfD and we should not edit the article in the meantime, and is my view that you are correct and Nug did a wrong thing by doing that edit/revert, with the AfD ongoing. Davide King (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- The AfD isn't about any specific 'version'. It is about whether the topic (if there actually is one, outside of Wikipedia and a few marginal writers) should have an article at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- It is a valid concern that is correctly called out here on what is and is not permissible. --Nug (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Please don't disrupt this discussion with claims about other contributor's behaviour elsewhere. Raise it at ANI or whatever if you like, but not here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:41, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Comment: Not 'voting' yet, see my rebuke of Nug's here. Davide King (talk) 22:04, 22 November 2021 (UTC) One of the reasons why such an article has been kept for so long (three no consensus, two keep) is perhaps because "per source" arguments are taken too much at face value, and in my link I will show they do not support MKuCR and/or misread, failing basic VERIFY, which is even worse than NPOV. [Edited to add] Davide King (talk) 22:25, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Collapsed discussion about suspending AfD
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Since Nug !voted (I am not sure how correct that is, since the DRN is still ongoing, albeit it has been moved at WP:DRNMKUCR; it needs to be put on hold). I would ask if Robert McClenon, provided Cloud200 and Siebert also agree to put the DRN on hold and move forward with the AfD, could be the moderator/closure of this AfD, as they have come to know the article's issues and arguments from both sides; they may take a break from reading our stuff, and simply taking the time to summarize closure when everything is done. Davide King (talk) 20:57, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
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- Strong Keep. I must say that the current version of the article appears to be in a rather sorry state, but the topic easily passes WP:GNG. This version of the article from January 2021 appears to be significantly better with the exception of the lead being rather short. In any case, the coverage in other sources contained in that January 2021 version is much more than enough for notability of the topic. And, since GNG is based on substantial coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. I'll give three:
- Stéphane Courtois; Nicolas Werth; Jean-Louis Panné; Andrzej Paczkowski; Karel Bartošek; Jean-Louis Margolin (1999). Mark Kramer (ed.). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674076087.
- Valentino, Benjamin A. (2013). "Communist Mass Killings: The Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia". Final Solutions. Cornell University Press. pp. 91–151.
- Fein, Helen (1993). "Soviet and Communist Genocides and "Democide"". "Genocide: A Sociological Perspective". Sage Publications. pp. 75–78. ISBN 0803988303.
- Many more sources are listed above, in the article currently, and are available more generally. Per WP:SOURCETYPES,
[w]hen available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources.
I really am shocked at the lack of a WP:BEFORE on this; the topic clearly passes WP:GNG to the extent that a plenitude of high-quality academic works reference it. And, the fact that the article has been muddled up and its quality has been degraded over the past ten months or so isn't a valid deletion reason. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 23:33, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
- Keep Again? We've been through this several times already. Well sourced, notable etc etc etc. Volunteer Marek 23:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)