Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of George W. Bush (2nd nomination)

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 speedy keep as pure disruption. (non-admin closure) Sceptre ^(talk) 12:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of George W. Bush

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Criticism of George W. Bush
• Articles for deletion/Criticism of George W. Bush (2nd nomination)

Criticism of George W. Bush (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Delete and userfy for creators and/or supporting editors, until all attack POV is removed, per BLP. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 00:07, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Strong keep: Passes WP:WELLKNOWN with flying colours. Also, given that, "According to an August 2008 poll, 41% of Americans consider Bush to be the worst President of all time," the absence of this article would be glaring. If anyone has done enough to warrant a "criticism of" article, it would be Bush. (In contrast, a similar aticle about Obama--which, interestingly, the same nominator put up for restoration at WP:DRV--would be horribly premature. So, to quote this very same nominator, "Criticisms are not inherently negative, they are critiques from differing perspectives - and many of these perspectives are notable. I would continue to work on the article, edit it, and make it more presentable.") Cosmic Latte (talk) 00:10, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• VERY strong delete. This is a blatant disregard for Wikipedia's NPOV policy. If this article gets to stand, I am going to get together a team of conservative Wikipedians and we are going to write a "Criticism of Barack Hussein Obama" article, and I am going to quote the keeping of this article as the reason for its creation. Thank you. -Axmann8 (Talk) 11:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Merge and Delete While I understand the value this may have, it looks like an inherently POV topic, and a fork of Public perception of George W. Bush. In my opinion that article is where this material belongs.... We already have an article on the public perceptions of the Bush presidency. Why are we creating another one for the express purpose of criticism? --Pstanton (talk) 00:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: "Merge and delete" is not an option, because merged articles must be kept, but are usually shortened into redirects, so that the histories of their contents can be preserved (see WP:MERGE). Perhaps you mean "merge and redirect"? Cosmic Latte (talk) 00:47, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. —Ism schism (talk) 00:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. —Ism schism (talk) 00:11, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Note: Contributors to this topic should be aware of:

1. [1] - list of "Criticism of..." articles on Wikipedia
2. The not-totally-unconnected Deletion Review for Criticism of Barack Obama.

There are lots of implications and subtexts here.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. As I said in the Barack Obama DRV, I think there's a case for "Criticism of..." articles on Wikipedia where the criticism itself is voluminous enough to be notable—but I think they need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:47, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Oddly, the nominator of both this AfD and the Obama DRV appears to realize this, even going so far as to say, "Wikipedia articles about critism are non uncommon, and we should AGF that they are evolving towards constructive and informative articles." It would be most interesting to find out why he's ignoring his own reasoning in this case. Cosmic Latte (talk) 01:57, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Rename and repurpose to Assessments of George W. Bush and include all types of assessments, good bad or indifferent. The current material is important, needs to be kept in WP somewhere, is likely too big and/or specialized for the current GWB articles, but "Criticism of ..." articles are inherently a bad idea both in theory and in practice. Public perception of George W. Bush is focused on polling and similar metrics, properly so I think, and should not try to absorb all this. Hence what I propose. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep, no clear deletion rationale given. For heaven's sake, there's a whole industry around this. How can anyone doubt its significance? WillOakland (talk) 01:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: Nomination is indeed very vague, and doesn't point to any specific "attack POV" whatsoever. And if the nominator feels that such POV is present, then why doesn't he take his own advice and "continue to work on the article, edit it, and make it more presentable"? A very strange nomination, to say the least. Cosmic Latte (talk) 01:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. No any rationale for deletion was provided by the nominator.Biophys (talk) 01:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep per what Cosmic Latte and WillOakland said.SPNic (talk) 02:23, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep Bad faith, pointy, sour grapes nomination. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 02:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Really? Then why is Criticism of Barack Obama protected from creation? Also, please assume good faith. JustGettingItRight (talk) 05:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• The editor has forfeited good faith already. And maybe it's prevented because he's only been President for 2 months, not 8 years. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Keep- Completely valid concept for an article. Needs to be/stay sourced and NPOV, but thats a matter for editors, not deletion. Umbralcorax (talk) 02:52, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I saw this at CAT:CSD and declined a speedy. But we really do need a general discussion of the concept behind these articles -- which I think is good -- and the manner of their execution, which tends to be somewhat questionable. DGG (talk) 03:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Delete for the same reasons I've copied and pasted above, despite my desire to agree with DGG as a general rule. In a nutshell: "Criticism of X" is not a good topic in its own right, in my opinion. I mean, I have plenty of criticism of W., but the operative word (letter) there is "W." And I would say the same for Criticism of Obama, BTW. Or O'Reilly. Or Emeril. Drmies (talk) 03:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. Per WP:SS: "Sections of long articles should be spun off into their own articles leaving a summary in its place." This is an appropriate daughter article, without which the properly encyclopedic discussion of criticism of Bush would overwhelm the main Bush bio. JamesMLane t c 04:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep For a President with a reasonable history/length of time in service this is appropriate. BLP is not a reason to delete such a page; it's a reason and tool to police it's contents. rootology (C)(T) 05:44, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - a very notable article, deletion reason is vague and unspecified. MathCool10 ^{Sign here!} 05:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep, but policy must be uniform Criticism of Barack Obama should be unprotected from recreation (I believe semi-protection would be OK). Wikipedia is getting hammered in the press for perceived disparities between our treatment of George W. Bush and Barack Obama Barack Obama 'receives preferential treatment on Wikipedia', report claims - Guardian (UK). Of course, WP:UNDUE and WP:V must be observed, but full protection over public criticism of President of the United States? JustGettingItRight (talk) 05:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Update: SALT to expire on Barack Obama after this AFD is over, pending a keep decision. JustGettingItRight (talk) 07:08, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I challenge you to name, right here and now, the top 5 criticisms you would post in an Obama criticism article. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, not a dueling ground where you need to challenge people "right here and now". I don't have the time to create any article, much less write the Criticism of Barack Obama article. However, I would guess there is substantial information to be written on criticism over the stimulus package and 2009 budget, over Obama's health care proposals (or lack thereof), over the proposed mortgage bailout, over Tim Geithner's handling of the continuing financial and banking crisis as Treasury secretary, over closing down Guantanamo, over allegedly talking down the economy, and (from the left) over continuing support of Bush administration legal positions regarding alleged terrorists. You have some peripheral criticisms as well, including criticism from the British press over the reception of Gordon Brown and criticism during the 2008 campaign of his admitted prior cocaine use (Bush's alcoholism is included in his article). There's a lot of good material that can be written by a dedidicated editor. BTW, as a COI disclaimer, I did vote for Obama in the 2008 election and I currently somewhat approve of his performance. JustGettingItRight (talk) 08:49, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Every President has critics and criticism, much of which is simply partisan bickering. In his victory speech in St.Paul, upon clinching the votes needed for nomination, everything Obama said was what I would call the "liberal agenda". If the critics are yelping because he's a liberal, that's irrelevant - it was a known fact going in. If he has reneged on anything he said he would do or try to do, now you've got something worth criticising. The concern is that a "criticism" article will become yet another lightning rod for an already-difficult situation. However, someone could always try writing one in a user sub-page and get some opinions on it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Evey President has critics, which is why I voted keep (I think you voted keep as well). I see some portions of this article, that while sourced and not necessarily false, really aren't criticisms in themselves and I see some synthesis in violation of WP:SYN. But errors in an article are not reason to delete an article. Criticisms stemming from ideology may be notable and this article has several instances of some criticisms stemming from ideological differences. I don't think its policy of the project to have the article creation done on a user page, especially considering that would stifle collaboration. If anything, a work in progress that an editor does not want to publish should be put on the article discussion page. That being said, I think any stub would have to have enough information on it not to get speedily deleted. I don't think one sentence saying, "There is criticism of Barack Obama. This is a stub." is acceptable. I think if editors on these politically charged articles will take a step back and consider, how is the information I'm adding to an article encyclopedic, they'll inevitably will have edits that are notable, accurate, neutral, and objective. JustGettingItRight (talk) 10:56, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

• Speedy keep: this AfD is pure disruption from Obama trolls. While I'd love for this article to go, I will not validate any attempt to use this article as a justification for the existence of an article for Obama when one already exists. Please also note that there's a merge discussion on the talk page for it to be merged to Public perception of George W. Bush. Sceptre ^(talk) 08:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
• Keep This article is too long to merged into the main Bush article and a merge discussion to another article is in progress. Spinning this off into its own page was a valid application of WP:SPLITTING. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:17, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

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.