Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/State Crimes Against Democracy

State Crimes Against Democracy

State Crimes Against Democracy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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WP:FRINGE, not notable subject. Searches come up with nothing. ThePlatypusofDoom (Talk) 14:59, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Delete - seems to fail WP:GNG and WP:RS. WegianWarrior (talk) 15:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:10, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:10, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

• Weak keep. Although I do not feel qualified to comment on what threshold for notability such concepts in the social "sciences" must meet, there are over one hundred Google scholar references that discuss this concept. Many of these are independent of the subject, published in the peer-reviewed American Behavioral Scientist, a journal with a reasonably high impact factor. They seem to me to be secondary sources that are independent of the original author, that are reliable under the rather high standards even of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. But as I said, I am not really qualified to assess these sources in a deeper way, other than to indicate their existence, and apparent reliability under our usual sourcing guidelines. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, a certain issue of American Behavioral Scientist gets a lot of attention on 9-11 Truther and Conspiracy websites. Looks like Lance deHaven-Smith, Matthew T. Witt, Laurie Manwell, etc. are accredited academics who also happen to hold conspiracy beliefs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:55, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Delete Looks like a several cups of speculation, with a side of synthesis all flavored with the barest sprinkling of RSs. Gordon Ramsey would not be pleased. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:03, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

• Delete Quite a bit of WP:SYNTHESIS used to make a fringe theory/term coined by Lance deHaven-Smith sound like it has mainstream traction. For example, the first sentence defining the term is sourced to Lance deHaven-Smith and Laurie Manwell, a 911 Truth advocate, but presented as the opinion of unspecified "scholars". Then a bunch of reliable sources that assert "crimes have been committed by government officials in the past" is used to bolster their theory. The pre-TNT version has many more examples of the synthetic argument being made by the article. If I had time, I would check all the non-fringe/non-deHaven-Smith sources to see that they actually discuss the topic as presented. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I've taken a look at some of them, and I can't find any non-fringe sources (I consider deHaven-Smith to be fringe, given his proclivities) that are well-cited and not used to support synth statements. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:16, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

• Delete It's a COATRACK for the promotion of Fringe Theories. The sources also appear to be overwhelmingly FRINGE and thus fail RS. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

My (PermStrump's) comment plus a few responses that no longer apply

Comment. The pre-TNT version is definitely written like an essay designed to promote fringe conspiracy views. I'm not convinced yet though that it was an accurate representation of deHaven-Smith's and other scholarly viewpoints. Does deHaven-Smith have a reputation for being a conspiracy theorist or are we assuming that based on his alleged association with this essay article? If there are independent reliable sources calling him a conspiracy theorist, then I'll quickly change my tune to saying we should evaluate this as an article on a fringe view. When I search my work database (a university library database) for "State Crimes against Democracy" and filter by peer-reviewed only, there are 83 hits (including duplicates, so a little less than 83). I've skimmed one paper by deHaven-Smith in Administration & Society (http://doi.org/10.1177/0095399709339014) and Manwell's article from American Behavioral Scientist (http://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209353279), and neither feel fringe-y at first glance. I also don't see obvious connections between the different authors and sources covering the topic. I'm not saying I haven't been fooled before, but I haven't heard anyone talk about specifics from the actual sources yet, so I wanted to make sure we weren't just assuming that the nonsense in the article was reflective of scholarly literature. I want to read a little more before I !vote, so I'll update this if my view changes, but right now it seems to me like poli sci professors are writing about things like banks' role in the 2008 financial crisis and the legislation that enables that kind of behavior, not stuff like "9-11 was an inside job". Tell me if I'm being naïve. —PermStrump(talk) 17:36, 19 May 2016 (UTC) This squares up with my own impression. Although this doesn't rule out the possibility that the article is a coatrack. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:16, 19 May 2016 (UTC) Note that the original version of the article was written by Lance deHaven-Smith himself. It's hard to tell if he's just a poli-sci professor who's been embraced by the fringe, or a poli-sci professor who is himself a fringe theorist. For example, his answer to "was 9-11 a SCAD?" [1] hints strongly at it, but stops just short of saying "yes". - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:02, 19 May 2016 (UTC) LuckyLouie, I swear I'm usually the first to see usernames like that and assume the editor is actually that person, but for whatever reason, my first reaction to seeing that username this time was that someone might be pretending to be deHaven-Smith in an attempt to disguise the fringe. I wouldn't be surprised if he's considered a hero to conspiracy theorists who might misinterpret his arguments because of their own confirmation bias. I never even heard of the guy before, so it's not like this is challenging my preconceived notion of deHaven-Smith (scout's honor). It's just that the tone and content of the pre-TNT article was so different from the one deHaven-Smith article that I "read" (read=I fully read the first and last pages and skimmed a few pages in between). Even if it really was created by deHaven-Smith himself, the article (should we decide it's notable enough to exist) would be about his views, fringe or not, as they're represented in independently published, reliable sources. —PermStrump(talk) 19:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

• Delete. The TLDR is that when you take out the articles authored by people with a potential COI (see sidebar discussion below), "state crimes against democracy" doesn't meet notability criteria, no matter which notability guideline you're looking at.

When I eliminated the names of people who contributed to deHaven-Smith, Witt, et al.'s books, I was left with 4, presumably independent sources in peer-reviewed journals that discussed SCAD and only two were solidly in-depth (Manwell 2010 and Kee & Forrer 2012). The other 2 were Catlaw (2013) and Love (2013). Otherwise there were some articles with reference lists that cited papers with SCAD in the title and a few passing mentions, but nothing else had enough coverage to use as a source in the article. On google scholar without the COIs, at most there's 1 additional book that could be a potential independent reliable source, but I haven't looked into it because I didn't think it would make or break the decision anyway. Also there are zero mentions of "state crimes against democracy" in mainstream news sources.

FWIW, I didn't get the impression that other scholars considered deHaven-Smith & Co.'s positions to be fringe or conspiracy theory. They seem to be well respected, even by academics who disagree with them. They do have an online fan club of conspiracy theorists who misrepresent their statements though and deHaven-Smith seems to feed into it. —PermStrump(talk) 02:07, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

• delete fails GNG and even if folks find the few independent sources with substantial discussion to push this over the bar, it still would need to be TNTed to have a real WP article. Jytdog (talk) 13:05, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

• Keep -- a useful article about an actual term. It's a real thing in the world, a term of art that's used. So keep it and make the article the best possible. It's not "fringe" and it's not wrong for Wikipedia to have this article. This is a canvassed vote, as well, being alerted on a certain noticeboard with encouragement to delete it here. SageRad (talk) 14:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

@SageRad: Posting notices to a noticeboard is not canvassing. There is no function on WP which prevents pro-fringe users from reading or participating at the FTN, nor can one interpret posting there to be targeted, as pro-fringe editors regularly do participate there. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. That board is publicly visible but the following is generally expected to vote to delete this article. I hope many non-McCarthyist editors will respond here in addition to those who see it as their mission to declare and root out all content that collides with their ideological agenda. SageRad (talk) 23:55, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

• Delete per OP. 142.105.159.60 (talk) 21:03, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
• Delete as well explained by LuckyLouie. Bishonen | talk 22:21, 22 May 2016 (UTC).

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. —PermStrump(talk) 23:37, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. —PermStrump(talk) 23:39, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Sidebar

It seems like it would be useful to at least try to reach consensus on how to categorize the topic (not the TNT'ed content). Because if we're evaluating it with WP:NFRINGE guidelines, we'd have to explore if the ~80 peer-reviewed articles on the topic are all "in-universe" in order to assess notability. If we decide the topic is legitimate perspective in the political science field, or even that it's an "alternative theoretical formulation" then I guess WP:GNG would be the applicable guideline? On the other hand, maybe the topic boils down to just being a phrase some professor coined and we should think of it as a WP:NEOLOGISM. I don't know what my opinion is yet (and WP:NEO just occurred to me, so now I have to brush up on that), but I do worry we're being too quick to assume that the topic is FRINGE. —PermStrump(talk) 19:58, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Feeling about the same. There are a couple ways to go with this. Since "State Crimes Against Democracy" appears to be a term in limited use by a small group of "involved" academics, the article might better be renamed [[Preventing State Crimes Against Democracy (book)]]. Or it could be a bio of Lance deHaven-Smith. In both cases, we'd need to find truly independent sources that objectively describe these views, e.g. [2] so we can write a neutral article that's not coatracking and soapboxing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:40, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Oh wait... There's a book? My gut reaction to learning that is that the article is likely an WP:ADMASQ for the book and also happens to be WP:FRINGEBAIT (that should be a thing). And I would bet that the majority of people who buy the book (outside of his students) are conspiracy theorists, so the more provocative statements he makes online are probably catering to his audience and that's why it sounds so different from what he's actually published in peer-reviewed journals. Anyway, I guess we should add WP:NBOOK and WP:ACADEMIC to the list of options for how to evaluate this. I'm not sure what to make of the fact that there's zero coverage of the topic in the mainstream media, but there were more academic articles in peer-reviewed journals than I originally expected. Let's say this was an article about the book, what does that say about its notability? —PermStrump(talk) 20:57, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Re: a possible book article - it is a bit confusing, but it seems there are two books hawking this term: State Crimes Against Democracy (Political Forensics in Public Affairs) by Matthew Witt (with Lance DeHaven-Smith listed as "contributor"), and Conspiracy Theory in America by Lance DeHaven-Smith (containing a substantial acknowledgement to Matthew Witt). Like I said, the topic is forwarded within small group of "involved" academics. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:58, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

State Crimes Against Democracy: Political Forensics in Public Affairs by Alexander Kouzmin, Matthew T. Witt, and Andrew Kakabadse lists 17 contributors (including deHaven-Smith and the 3 listed as authors), so maybe that list will make it easier to tease out which of the 80ish peer-reviewed articles are actually independent. I think we can assume anything written by at least these people has a potential COI: Alkadry MG, Burke J, deHaven-Smith L, Dixon J, Hinson C, Jensen C, Johannesson J, Kakabadse A, Kakabadse NK, Kouzmin A, Kuku-Siemons DS, Mouraviev N, Pappas NV, Siemons H, Simnjanovsk R, Spehr S, Witt M. And their works shouldn't count separately towards the notability of the concept or book. I wonder if we'll find anything truly independent, even if it's to criticize SCADs. The suspense! —PermStrump(talk) 22:39, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

References