Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake

Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake

Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

I think it should be deleted!!!!

Yet another silly "reactions to..." article. It fails WP:N, which requires "more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute evidence of sufficient notability". The earthquake itself is notable, no doubt. The boilerplate reactions to it ("deep sorrow... deep regret... sympathy and condolences") are not. If Uruguay had said "we're really glad this happened", or if Malawi had said, "we don't give a fig about the quake", it would at least have been interesting, but this is dry as well as transitory. So, yes, it's sourced, but so is the entire run of newspapers every day - not everything in the news merits an encyclopedia article. Given that none of these reactions was profound enough that probably anyone will remember them a week's hence, let's delete for lack of notability. Biruitorul (talk) 23:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait/Merge I opposed the move in the first place, but it was moved anyways. So I stayed shut and worked on improving this particular article. I will now work on reaching consensus to move this back to the main article. Give me a day or two. --haha169 (talk) 23:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

AfDs typically run 5 days, so let me make a deal: if you merge back within 4 days, I'll withdraw. Biruitorul (talk) 00:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Very Strong Keep: Bad faith nom. I will propose to take some measures against the nominator so that he cannot disrupt the AfDs. This is well-sourced article documenting the international reaction to a major earthquake. We have similar articles International reactions to the 2006 Lebanon War, Reactions to the September 11, 2001 attacks etc. While this will be WP:OTHERSTUFF type argument, but this topic is valid topic. Not only this, any this kind of topic is valid topic. The main article 2008 Sichuan earthquake is becoming too long. To maintain wikipedia's standard article size, i.e. 32 KB, this information cannot be merged. The nom is frivolous. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 00:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Otolemur, I turned a blind eye when you were harassing the IP, but this will not hold. Please stop accusing people of things like this. Just because you disagree with them, does not give you the right to accuse people. Go discuss this on the talk page, or debate peacefully for its keep. --haha169 (talk) 00:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyways, those reactions that you've listed have things in them besides just a list of countries. Plus, the 32kb standard, if that even is a standard, can be surpassed, greatly, at that. --haha169 (talk) 00:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I invite you to take those measures - there's nothing out of the ordinary in this nomination and any official fora are bound to laugh off a complaint of "frivolity".

To address your substantive point - yes, the earthquake deserves an article, as I said. That doesn't mean a string of officials saying "we're sorry" (which always happens after a disaster) is also notable, and the fact that the article is well-sourced, as I have said, does not imply conformity with WP:N. Not every scrap of news deserves its place in an encyclopedia. You're free to disagree, but please do so in a civil fashion. Biruitorul (talk) 04:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. It's easy to rack up sources showing that multiple countries expressed sympathy for the victims of this earthquake, but harder to explain why that qualifies as an encyclopedia article. Unlike in the case of International reactions to the 2006 Lebanon War, the reactions to the earthquake are not diverse or nuanced. Also, I encourage Otolemur to assume good faith on the part of the nominator. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• Anything but delete - worth at least to merge and redirect back into the parent article; plausible search target. Pegasus «C¦T» 04:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Pegasus, could you describe your ideas for a plausible merge on the Earthquake article's talk page? It would be helpful to hear more opinions. Thanks! To the nominator The creator of this article says that he will try his best to improve this article within 4 days, but if it does not meet standards, leave a message on my talk page and I will perform the merge. You may delete afterwards. If it passes, then everything is all fine. --haha169 (talk) 04:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Haha169, I'm open to various suggestions. I prefer deletion (which is why I made the nomination), but if consensus leads in another direction, I suppose that's fine too. Biruitorul (talk) 05:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• • • If the reactions page is merged into the main page about the earthquake, we should leave a redirect rather than deleting the reactions page altogether. This is the standard procedure to comply with the GNU Free Documentation License. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. Consensus on the talk page seems to be leaning towards a merge; and will probably end up as such, unless Chzz manages to bring this article up to scratch. --haha169 (talk) 05:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. This is nothing more than a directory of pro forma announcements of sympathy. As governments and NGOs frequently make such announcements they are of little encyclopedic value. These mainly get into news stories as a local angle and into Wikipedia probably for similar motivations but also in both cases due to a lack of high-quality information on the event, thus they fill a news vacuum in the initial hours. But they have very little value to an encyclopedia. --Dhartung | Talk 07:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Per Dhartung. These announcements are so banal they even do not deserve a redirect. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 09:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Not encyclopedic. --Kleinzach (talk) 09:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Keep- Its a notable subject that's well sourced. I see no reason to delete. Umbralcorax (talk) 13:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, yes, it's sourced. But it's also quite ephemeral - that X,Y and Z expressed their condolences is not exactly encyclopedic material, per the "short burst" clause of WP:N. Biruitorul (talk) 18:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. I'm the 'creator of this article' mentioned above. I feel my opinions have been somewhat misconstrued. I created it after considerable discussion on the original article page, in which I wanted to delete the secion, and the 'Foreign and domestic aid' secion. A compromise seemed to be moving it into a separate article, which met no opposition, so that's what I did it.

I can't see a consensus in the discussion 'leaning toward a merge'.

I did not say I would improve the article within 4 days; I said that we should await the result of this AFD, referencing WP:GD "exercise extreme caution before merging...It is far better to wait until the discussion period is complete".

My opinion is that it would devalue the main article, as the information is not worthy of an encyclopaedic article. --  Chzz  ►  15:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete I can summarise the article in four words: "ground shakes. people sad." - as the nom says, this is just a list of boilerplate reactions, unlike 9/11 or Lebanon where you can have X governments supporting and Y opposing. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• I think this article should be deleted, it's not worhty of its own article and the content should definitly be merged. I echo Otolemur crassicaudatus's comments above though, that nom is ridiculous, badly written and bad faith.--Phoenix-wiki 16:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but my nomination was written in good English and presented policy-based reasons for deletion. No bad faith was involved - or would you like to point it out? Biruitorul (talk) 18:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete and definitely not merge – the contents is in no way from encyclopaedical value. That the Pope prayed and Dubya sent his condolences is an act of courtesy but no information at all. See als WP:RECENTISM on this. Did I say delete? --Matthiasb-DE (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I never said I was merging Vatican City. See 2008 Sichuan earthquake's talk page for a list of merger items. Some things on this list are quite important.--haha169 (talk) 00:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • On the WP:RECENTISM essay, it states "Sometimes side articles like 2004 U.S. election voting controversies and 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities can be created to help to stabilize content on the main article, in this example, the U.S. presidential election, 2004 article. A compelling reason for creating side articles is that various editors will continue to add the same details of current events to the main article unless there is another place for the rapid influx of information to be recorded." which could be applied to Reactions to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.   — C M B J   04:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. The colorful flags are very pretty, but the article has no other utility. Of course if there are a few countries that don't sent their condolences and say that its good that the earthquake happened - by all means, that's notable.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Keep (at least until a reasonable period of time has passed): There are other catastrophes with similar articles (International response to Hurricane Katrina, International response to the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, Reactions to the September 11, 2001 attacks.) Hurricane Katrina even has individual articles for a number of countries (Canadian response to Hurricane Katrina, Dutch response to Hurricane Katrina, French response to Hurricane Katrina, Mexican response to Hurricane Katrina, New Zealand response to Hurricane Katrina, Russian response to Hurricane Katrina, Singaporean response to Hurricane Katrina, Swedish response to Hurricane Katrina) that have developed a fair level of encyclopedic content. The article in its current state is not very encyclopedic, however, given the fact that this is an ongoing event; it is presumptuous to terminate this article so soon.   — C M B J   02:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, the "Foreign and domestic aid" section from the main article will ultimately need to be integrated (as per the Hurricane Katrina article) for the desired educational value.   — C M B J   02:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I dont think there is much doubt that the subject will continue to be important enough for this sort of detailed coverage.People should letthis sort of article be developed, not rushing in the same day. DGG (talk) 02:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Wikipedia is not an information store. If all information is correctly cited, then nothing unique is contained within. Otherwise it would be original research. Therefore all information is publicly available - we don't need to store it up for future generations. The content here is not worthy of inclusion in an encyclopaedia; therefore it should be chopped. If, some time later, someone wishes to construct an article on 'reactions' then noone would be happier than me. For now, it surely has to go. --  Chzz  ►  03:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep I personally have worked my ass off for this article to see it kept.

Richardkselby (talk) 04:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Bunch of lists, not very encyclopedic. Merumerume (talk) 05:42, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep I was one of the editors who discussed on the earthquake article talk page about the hiving off of this article. The numerous "allowed" reaction-to-events articles have been mentioned before so I will not rattle through them here. The world has reacted to this event, now i know it is usual and expected - and granted, the Pope praying is not notable - but given the context Wiki recording who and what has been pledged is a useful precis of the events following the earthquake. The reactions article being separate avoids the main article losing its focus. The reactions article being separate allows Wiki to have in one place a record of pledges, reactions, something the mainstream media cannot complete. It allows Wiki to keep an unique record of world attitudes to China (generally) and natural disasters in tighter economic circumstances (more specifically). If it is curently a "bunch of lists" then be bold and change it - put it tables, or regional blocks, or turn it into a prose article with highlighted maps and charts.

Without this article being separate, the original article (already with an aid pledge section) will become very long and unwieldy. Without this section at all, Wiki administrators may have to decide whether a new policy will have to be drawn up, for I suspect the international reaction sections were becoming something of a standard following events. If this deletion goes through, then this "consensus built standard" will fall under question indeed. I say "keep" doktorb _words^deeds 06:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)