Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2009 Honduran coup d'état

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. No strong consensus either way; a potential merge/rename should be discussed on this article's talk page. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:57, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

2009 Honduran coup d'état

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/2009 Honduran coup d'état

2009 Honduran coup d'état (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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This is a POV fork of 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis created due to the naming dispute of whether this is a coup or not; it is not as claimed a sub-article as it is evidently been copied and pasted from the original article (not cut and pasted); a more classic POV fork I have yet to see . Thanks, SqueakBox talk contribs 21:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It was, indeed, originally copied and pasted. However, the splitting (made clear in a navbox present on all relevant pages) has enabled the parent article, which was a giant mess at over 156K (around #350 in Special:LongPages), to shrink in just a couple of days to under 118K (not in the top 1000 LongPages), and the shrinking continues. I think the parent should come down under 64K over time; yet without the sub-article, that would be impossible, as all sides would defend the inclusion of "their" facts. I think that this is clear evidence that the split is useful. Thus, I believe it is not a POV fork.

Also, I am the initiator of the split, which was discussed on the talk page of the original article and got some informal support and no opposition (I was not the first one to raise it. Xavexgoem said "B) fork the article into its coup, constitutional, and aftermath parts (2009 Honduran coup d'etat, the current 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, whatever the name of the aftermath section would be, plus a general article that summarizes everything -- at least this is the only split I see gaining consensus). Option B would require a helluva lot of consensus-building, although I'm partial to the option (since, in addition, it gives us an article to start fresh with)... I'm partial to B)"). As the discussion there shows, the motivation for this split is a traditional sub-article rationale, and not, as SqueakBox claims, the naming dispute. I would absolutely support this split even if consensus decided that the sub-article should be named Honduran events on 28 June 2009 or some such non-"coup" name (although I'd currently oppose such a consensus, but not vehemently, and anyway that's a separate issue).

Finally, note that the sub-article and the parent article have now each attracted independent work, which (if this AfD goes through) would have to be merged back into the parent article. The same goes for the other two sub-articles created concurrently (Fourth ballot box and Micheletti regime) which were created by the same means (that is, copy, then edit independently to trim the parent and clean up the child). Homunq (talk) 21:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - It is a fork, but it isn't a POV fork. This is primarily for article brevity and weight. The details of the coup, as such, had far too much weight for a much larger matter (i.e., the constitutional crisis). We also split the articles into the prior-to-the-event, the-event, and after-the-event, due to the depth this subject requires. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —Nick-D (talk) 05:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Merge/delete it was never a coup d'etat, since it was a legal removal of the sitting president, the title is a POV stance 65.94.252.195 (talk) 06:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Would you also vote "move" (to something without "coup" in the name) if that were an option? I ask becaus I think that the existence/value of this page should be decided separately from the question of whether its name is POV. Homunq (talk) 09:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

If this is kept, it would need to be renamed. Otherwise, it should just be part of the constitutional crisis article. Whether there is already enough material in that article, or if some should be merged is my !vote of "merge/delete", since either is acceptable. Keeping is less desirable, since I don't see a clean cut to have an article on the non-coup as a separate topic from the constitutional crisis. 65.94.252.195 (talk) 09:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the cut is clean. This article covers the events of June 28th and their direct causes (primarily the arrest order - the causes of the arrest order are NOT directly in scope, meriting only a brief mention here) and effects (primarily, opinions and/or positions on those events which were expressed after that date). Homunq (talk) 11:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

65.94.252.195, I looked at your user contributions. It appears that you have never edited any of the Honduran coup articles. Per WP:MEAT policy, "in votes or vote-like discussions, new users may be disregarded." -- Rico 19:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

And that doesn't really matter, since my IP rotates, or did you not notice that the edit contribution history for this IP address abruptly starts in November, with edits that are not indicative of a new user? I have infact editted the constitutional crisis article, several times. But I don't expect that you'll accept me, because I don't think you accept IP users, forgive me if I am misinterpreting your actions. 65.94.252.195 (talk) 05:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, just a note to Rico: a ton of folks are on rotating IPs (DHCP). Xavexgoem (talk) 07:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I disagree with the IP's stance, and personally would not comment in AFD as an IP, but I defend his right to do so. He appears to have made useful articlespace contributions on astronomy. (I say "he" as an educated guess, not because of the astronomy, but because of some of the other stuff.) Homunq (talk) 15:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for defending his or her right to comment in AFD as an IP, as if I had suggested that s/he had no such right (even though I never wrote that).

Please feel free to reply to other things I've never written, as if I have.

Very impressive, oh defender of right. -- Rico 20:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Peace. You're a good editor and I value your contributions. I had no intention to offend you, in fact I considered you a friend and ally. I understand now that you did not share this feeling of familiarity, and that by acting on it, I was bothering you. I will no longer respond to your comments if I can avoid it, and if I can't I'll be as factual as possible. However, here and now, I cannot help noting that you seemed angry enough to swear at me twice (with the link above, and below) when I was not aiming to offend, and strongly urge you to closely consider whether this apparently-emotional style of response is productive, and if not, what you can do to avoid it. Homunq (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I wrote only what I wrote, but you and everyone and anyone are free to read into it anything you like. A policy quotation is a simple, indisputable fact. That the 65.94.252.195 contributions history contains no edit to any Honduran coup article, is an indisputable fact.

I never wrote anything about whether an IP could comment in AFD as an IP, and anyone that replied to me as if I did could give a damn about civility.

I never wrote it, and I never thought it.

I failed to consider that an anonymous poster may have edited using another IP address.

Shoot me. -- Rico 03:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - It is a fork, but it is nescessary for it has enabled the main article be reduced in size and clarified. Denying there was a coup d'etat is POV pushing. It's still work in progress Cathar11 (talk) 10:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Your comment reflects a complete lack of understanding of NPOV policy; there are 2 POVs, that it is a coup and that it is not a coup; at wikipedia we take sides at our peril; we cannot decide one side has a valid argument and the other does not so claiming it was or wasn't a coup as fact and negating the other POV is the only POV pushing going on here. Thanks, SqueakBox talk contribs 13:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Can we try to restrict the discussion to the article's existence, not its name? Or is that the reason you nominated this (and not its twin sister articles) for AFD after all? Homunq (talk) 14:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - any concerns over POV name issues can be addressed through either an eventual name change or by explaining controversy in the lede. Moogwrench (talk) 14:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Merge/delete - What the editor handling this AfD needs to understand, is that this article was a redirect to 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis[1].
  The reason for that is that the 2009 Honduran coup d'état article was renamed, "2009 Honduran constitutional crisis".
  This was the result of rampant nationalist POV warriors, that didn't want the word "coup" in the name of the article about the coup -- so the article about the coup was renamed, "2009 Honduran constitutional crisis".
  Before this fork the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis article was the 2009 Honduran coup d'état article, and most all of us really know it.
  This fork is just an end run around policy.
  The right way to handle the WP:NAME violation would be to add a Name change request to the misnamed article's talk page, not to create an article out of the redirect (just because it is titled with the name WP:NAME policy supports) -- that became a redirect after an admin declared the coup deniers/apologists right and the editors that wanted to comply with Wikipedia policy wrong.
  And yes, this is absolutely a POV fork. All it does is evade the Name change loss.
  I was so excited to see this end run around rampant nationalist POV warriors, that I forgot what kind of a Wikipedian I want to be. -- Rico 20:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Rico, please assume good faith on my part. The resolution to the name war on "constitutional crisis" was that the article should stay at "constitutional crisis", with a subhead named "coup", because it covered more than just the coup - that is, it covered before, during, and after the coup. That's fine. Then the article got too big - >156K, around number 350 on Special:LongPages - and needed splitting into sub-articles. The most logical split was to make sub-articles for before, during, and after the coup, which I did. This is the second of those three articles, and it is NOT the same as 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis. While this article does have brief, one-paragraph summaries for before and for after the coup, those are generally out-of-scope, which is why it's about a third the size of the parent article. The parent article, for its part, has now dropped from 157K (over 70K readable text) to 112K (under 40K readable text, a nearly proper size).

The three new sub-articles needed some name. I did my best to follow WP:NAME for each on its own right. On this article, that meant following the existing subhead in the parent article and the broad majority of RS, as you know and agree.

I understand your suspicion of an action which gives a result that's so convenient for those who thought that the original article should have been named "coup" in the first place. But for a minute, forget about the high emotions, and just put yourself in my place. Once I decided to follow policy and do a WP:Split, what else could I have done? I must admit, some part of me felt the same glee you did in being able to at last put an article under this well-deserved name, but that was NOT my motivation for doing this split; it just needed to be done and so I did it following policy. (Well OK, I think I didn't do the edit summary right, mea culpa).

Also, one interesting point: now that the split has happened, it's clear to me that the tug-of-war over the parent article's title resulted in the RIGHT decision. If you and I had prevailed earlier and located the overall article at the "coup" name, I would have had to move it when splitting. So: I was wrong. To me, it's another confirmation that there's often more wisdom in a collaborative process than you realize at the time. Homunq (talk) 22:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you a mind reader? Is that how you know what I "realize"?

You've replied to what I hadn't written, as if I had, and now you've put thoughts in my head (as if there's some way you could know what's in there). I'd write that you don't give a flying fuck about civility, but then, I would have to be a mind reader to know what you care about, wouldn't I?

Regarding, "The resolution to the name war on 'constitutional crisis' was that the article should stay at "constitutional crisis", with a subhead named 'coup'.

This is not true. "The resolution to the name war on 'constitutional crisis' was that the article should stay at "constitutional crisis."

Now you've started a second article with the name that wasn't chosen after the Name change ran its course. -- Rico 00:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Obviously, I'm no mind reader. And I'm really sorry. I did not mean to offend you. I was trying to signal that I understood where you were coming from, in order to be friendly, and obviously that was a mistake. I've stricken through the text that, as far as I can tell, offended you, and I don't know what else I can do.

I understand that my informal tone was an error, but I don't understand more than a little bit of your response directly above, so I really can't respond to it on the substance, just the tone, and so I repeat my apology. Peace.

Is there anything I can do to clarify my response above? Basically, my point is that I changed 2009 Honduran coup d'état from a redirect into a subarticle because 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis needed to be WP:Split, not as a sneaky way of moving the article and breaking the truce on the name war. I was trying to cite the (limited and weak) evidence which would help an observer distinguish my intent. And in the process I was being too clever by half. Homunq (talk) 03:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Merge or Delete. POV fork at best, incorrect article at worst. The original name as noted above as part of a consensus situation is more valid. Ed Wood's Wig (talk) 13:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Ed Wood's Wig, you have also considered the parent article to be incorrect and POV. Is this article any different in that regard? In other words, is it in your opinion a WP:CFORK, or just a WP:Split of a bad article? Homunq (talk) 14:17, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem is project-wide at this point, but this is almost certainly a POV split from folks who are angry that the current articles don't reflect unreality enough. Ed Wood's Wig (talk) 18:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Merge back to 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis. This is effectively a content fork of that article, and in fact contains much of the same content; we don't need two articles that duplicate each other. In theory, it might be acceptable to have a sub-article on the coup d'etat as a part of the ongoing constitutional crisis in Honduras, but this isn't it. Robofish (talk) 00:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment: we're still working on pairing down the parent article. Obviously, we had to take the content from somewhere. It's hard to tell whether people are equivocating over split vs. fork, at this point, too. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC) No-one's called for a spoon!

• Keep There can be disagreement about the article's title but there is not doubt that the subject is notable and there is enough material to make a valid sub-article of 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis. You may call it coup, President's removal, forced exile or whatever but there is no reason for deletion. JRSP (talk) 01:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep - Has lots of valuable info specific to the coup itself. Helvetica (talk) 04:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delete - Seems that since the argument for the title was not won, then instead this article was created as an alternative. The Constitutional Crisis talk page has plenty of arguments pro and against calling "Coup D'Etat" don't see how can the alternative that was not finally utilized, in a separate article could add nothing more than confusion to the readers Wikihonduras (talk) 13:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Does this help? Homunq (talk) 20:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• Keep This article has its place within the larger context of the situation. It is in the popular lexicon and is a distinct historical event. --Xaliqen (talk) 19:25, 14 November 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.