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Conspiracy theories of the United States presidential election, 2016

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The article has already been substantively deleted in all but name by a handful of editors. In its current form it is a WP:COATRACK for an anti-conspiracy POV essay with exactly one sentence left that very generally references the subject of the title. The article fails NPOV and everything of substance that could be connected to the title has been redacted.

That said I would prefer the article be kept. It recently survived, barely, an AfD. Further, the closing was strongly endorsed in a Deletion Review. What has occurred here appears to be a deliberate end run around the previous AfD by editors who presumably did not agree with its outcome. Reasonable people can debate the merits of this article and whether or not it should be kept. But I do not believe that it is right to delete an article by radical redaction after a no-consensus AfD. ~~If you want to delete an article that's fine, but do it honestly at AfD, not by the back door.~~ (Striking a sentence that I believe could be interpreted as impugning the good faith of the editors in question- A/O)

If the community confirms the gutting of all relevant material from the article then I !vote to Delete for the reasons stated above. However, my preference is to Keep the article, conditional on restoration of at least most of the redacted material for the reasons put forth in my Keep !vote in the previous AfD.

I respectfully defer to the community's judgement. Ad Orientem (talk) 19:52, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:33, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This AfD is WP:POINTY as can be and should probably be closed. That said, I agree that the article has effectively been blanked and edit warred to keep it blanked. That's a problem. Hobit (talk) 20:35, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comment. A couple of quick notes... First I do strongly disagree with the deletion by redaction (blanking of all relevant material) in the article, fair enough. However, the article has in fact been blanked and all that's left is an anti-conspiracy theory declaration (that I agree with but that's neither here nor there). That's not something we want to keep. Secondly the editors in question are blocking attempts to restore any of the blanked material. And lastly the article is very controversial. So much so that the closer of the previous AfD recommended a speedy renomination to try and get consensus. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:52, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy close – To be clear, you're nominating the article for deletion and want it kept? AfD is not the place for content disputes. Graham (talk) 21:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, this is not a "content dispute." It is presenting to the community the question of whether we should confirm formally what has already been done informally, i.e. delete the article or whether it should be kept. That is exactly what AfD is for. The previous AfD ended in no consensus with a recommendation for a speedy renomination. The article in its current form does not meet our standards and if that remains the case, it should be deleted as I stated above. The guidelines only require that a rational for deletion be presented. It does not require that the nominator support or agree with the rational. AfD exists precisely to resolve existential questions of this sort. And yes there are a number of complicated issues here as can be seen from the previous AfD. Which is why it needs to be placed before the community for the broadest possible participation in the hope of gaining consensus. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Fails notability. In order to establish notability, it must be shown that someone has written about the topic of conspiracy theories in the U.S. presidential election, not that various journalists have written about various individual theories. "Conspiracy theory" has a specific meaning in the literature, but journalists may stretch it. So for example the theory that Ted Cruz could not become president because he was born in Canada has been described as a conspiracy theory but is actually a fringe theory. The theory that Clinton's concussion affected her cognitive abilities is either an unfounded or malicious rumor. What we need is a source that explains what is meant by a conspiracy theory and outlines some examples from the 2016 election. And we need to know before we add anything that the author is talking about the same topic. If no one in reliable sources has chosen to write about the topic of this article then it lacks notability. The fact that we can find numerous examples where someone has called one theory or other a conspiracy theory (the "but we have sources!" argument) is insufficient to meet notability guidelines. Otherwise we could have articles such as "Republican sex offenders," "Democrat thieves," "Liberals who text pictures of their genitals," etc. Each of these articles would be a point of view nightmare, wasting editors' time edit-warring and on talk page arguments, which has happened here. TFD (talk) 21:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(I've argued above this should be speedy closed, but until then...)

keep and restore material We have a lot of conspiracy theories this time around. I don't think it makes sense to have an article for each one (though many, if not all, of the ones in the article are individually quite well sourced and well above our inclusion guidelines. We have policies for judging notability, and that's WP:N. This is pretty clearly beyond "news"--these are real (if incorrect) discussions going on, and it should be our job to clarify them to the extent sources allow us to do so. Basically, I claim there is no basis in policy for deletion. I've seen notability, BLP and a misunderstanding of how we cover hoaxes as justification, but none of those hold water. Hobit (talk) 21:45, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete TFD has convinced me. This is a synthesis of a bunch of individual theories, and there is coverage on the individual elements but not the article topic itself. That it is a POV nightmare is true but not as persuasive as the fact that the sources are talking about the individual events, not the group. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as a hopeless POV coatrack that is bound to violate BLP and is unencyclopedic.--MONGO 23:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the exact same reasons I argued just like ... last week (though it seemed to be about 10x longer at the time). BlueSalix (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per TFD. As a stand-alone topic, I don't see evidence this concept exists in reliable sources outside of Wikipedia. Compiling all such ideas in one article is a violation of WP:SYNTHESIS. --Jayron 32 01:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if these sources were in it before the article was culled, but 30 seconds on Google uncovered plenty of sources that treat "Conspiracy theories of the United States presidential election" as a concept in its own right, not a collection of disparate ideas SYNTHed together -

"Presidential election brings conspiracies into the light" (Associated Press) [1]
"Welcome to the Conspiracy Theory Election" (Newsweek) [2]
"The 5 Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theories of 2016" (Politico) [3]
"Donald Trump's a Liberal Plant and 5 Other Ridiculous Political Conspiracy Theories" (Men's Journal) [4]
"The 10 weirdest 2016 election conspiracy theories" (San Francisco Chronicle) [5]

BlueSalix (talk) 02:35, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I added Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hillary Clinton brain damage rumor as a related AfD above, as relevant to this discussion. Hope this works. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:35, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per TFD, and my own comments in the last discussion. --Begoon ^talk 03:41, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DeleteConspiracy theories of the United States presidential election, 2016 lacks any notability in its self. Excluding perhaps the Trump plant theory the aspects that have been removed lack any notability stand alone, though I question if it does. This article is abit of a coatrack. I question if it's anything more than a povfork to hold non-notable fringe topics such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hillary Clinton brain damage rumor. Thus far I've no evidence other than the affirmative. -Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:21, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - there's no way to have this article be encyclopedic once one removes all the non-RS garbage. I have no idea what "anti-conspiracy theory POV" is. That just sounds strange. Is that like when someone doesn't believe in conspiracy theories and that's supposedly a bad thing or something? Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, now that the WP:fringe and WP:OR has been removed there is nothing left that is notable for a stand alone article. And frankly the old version should not be "restored", it was a WP:POVFORK and also had WP:UNDUE issues. It should have been deleted. Kierzek (talk) 04:54, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - The election does seem to be full of conspiracy theories, and several media outlets (MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times certainly) state explicitly that they are conspiracy theories - that Clinton had brain damage, that Cruz's dad killed JFK, etc. Now this is all clearly bollocks, but the fact is such things have been a surprisingly substantial part of the campaign on the GOP side. These things have been removed under the guise of BLP, but I believe that is being applied too widely - it seems people would rather pretend such theories don't exist and are using the idea that "Cruz's dad killed JFK" as being defamation to remove it. Saying that without context is defamation, what is not is saying "Trump implied Cruz's dad killed JFK citing a supposed image of Cruz and Oswald. The photo is not of Cruz. Trump repeated these claims despite debunkation." Cite to NYT, WP, CNN, BBC, etc. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:09, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and restore. I don't think the present stub version of the article is really worth keeping, but the revision with details was well-sourced, and only WP:SYN in the sense that any article that aggregates multiple opinions and perspectives is. I do not see any novel thesis being advanced, either in the stub or non-stub versions of the article. Much has been written about conspiracy theories, in American politics in general, and also in the 2016 election cycle, to warrant an article on that subject. There are even good sources for specific theories that we can use. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:14, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Coatrack. Should have been deleted in the first AfD, it was running 22-12, which seems decisive. Carrite (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Agree with BlueSalix, there are many RS that put all these theories in the same context, so it's appropriate to have an article. JerryRussell (talk) 16:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, as it should have been the first time; that was a terrible close which should have been overturned and hopefully will be this time. Loads of synthesis, including an attempt to end-run round the Clinton brain tumour AfD. Just because reliable sources happen to comment on lunatic ones doesn't make a cobbling together of them notable. Black Kite (talk) 16:51, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I'm still not convinced there's an intelligible encyclopedic subject here. There are sources using the term "conspiracy theory" to talk about specific claims and there are sources which talk about the use of conspiracy theories being a trend in one campaign or another -- or in the election in general. Given the latter, I get why there are people arguing to keep. My problem is that it's analogous to "List of lies of the United States presidential election, 2016" based on sources like this, this, or this. Or a "List of crazy claims of the United States presidential election, 2016" because of sources like this or this. There are indeed plenty of sources for both -- talking about individual crazy claims and a pattern of crazy claims. The problem is, "conspiracy theory", like "crazy claim" does not in this usage have any clear meaning such that they can be brought together without either (a) WP:SYNTH, or (b) sourcing that simply uses the term (in which case a list of "crazy" claims also fits the bill). As others have pointed out, many of the things called "conspiracy theories" do not include a conspiracy, but are rather just baseless/fringe/outrageous claims. There's plenty of room in the various campaign/election articles for mention of particular claims that attracted significant attention, though. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:24, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, if you look at this article not just as a violation of Wikipedia's rules, but as an 'attractive nuisance' which will encourage editors to add allegations to it, and of course pave the way for the sequel, Conspiracy theories of the United States presidential election, 2020... or why not create one for 2008 and file all those Kenya birthplace stories?→StaniStani 18:30, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You mean like Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories?? Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:11, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (Weak delete?): This article, if kept, needs to be held on a very, very short leash, to avoid it being flooded with unreliable garbage. I am not confident that that could be done. I do acknowledge that there is enough info out there to probably pass GNG. p b p 19:10, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per TFD and others.--NextUSprez (talk) 19:14, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 48: / Line 48: @@
 ::You mean like [[Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories]]?? [[User:Sławomir Biały|<span style="text-shadow:grey 0.3em 0.3em 0.1em; class=texhtml">Sławomir Biały</span>]] ([[User talk:Sławomir Biały|talk]]) 19:11, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * '''Comment (Weak delete?):''' This article, if kept, needs to be held on a very, very short leash, to avoid it being flooded with unreliable garbage.  I am not confident that that could be done.  I do acknowledge that there is enough info out there to probably pass GNG. <span style="border:1px solid;background:#800080">[[User:Purplebackpack89|<span style="color:#FFCC00">p</span>]][[User talk:Purplebackpack89|<span style="color:#FFCC00;">b</span>]][[User:Purplebackpack89/C|<span style="color:#FFCC00;">p</span>]]</span> 19:10, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
+* '''Delete''' per TFD and others.--[[User:NextUSprez|NextUSprez]] ([[User talk:NextUSprez|talk]]) 19:14, 3 September 2016 (UTC)