Talk:Wall of Shame

Title of this article
The title of this article really should be "Wall of Shame" (in quotation marks) as it is about a term rather than an object or group of objects. I tried to change it but I got a message back that I can't rename the article either because I am not logged in, I am blocked or my account is too new. Neither of the first two are true and I can find no explanation of how old an account needs to be in order for me to be able to rename an article. I was directed to WP:RN where I could "request" the moving/renaming, but the instructions there made my head start to spin, so I gave up. Someone who knows the secret handshake should consider making this change (and see my similar comment on Apartheid Wall.) 6SJ7 23:27, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I just tried the "move" again and it worked. I am not sure what changed in the past 2 days to allow me to do so.  I have not yet edited the pages that linked to this article to eliminate the double-redirects, as I think there is a high probability that someone is going to try to move it back to its original title and I do not want to change the links only to find that I have wasted my time.  6SJ7 15:39, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I dont know what are you talking about. The walls are objects made of stone, steel and electronic gear, what do you mean with "they are not objects"? You are right, someone will come and will move your quotations away, simple because you are wrong. Boninho 15:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * They are indeed objects, but none of them (at least none of the walls/barriers/etc. mentioned in the article) are called the "Wall of Shame." The article is about a term that some people apply to some or all of these objects, not about the objects themselves.  Personally I do not see why this is a separate article, it could have been a sentence in the "Separation barrier" article, saying "Some people call some of these barriers "walls of shame."  But my philosophy of what is a valid encyclopedia article apparently is not the prevailing view on Wikipedia.  I can, however, try to get an article name to be correct.  6SJ7 17:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Wrong again! Who gave the names? It is said clearly that Kennedy, Chirac and some others top leaders (quoted!) and many millons worldwide call these walls as such. Are you denying it? please overwhelm yourself with a quick google search! It is also VERY CLEARLY stated that builders and supporters do not call them as such and actively campaign for them NOT to be called as "walls of shame", including attempts to delete or hide all references to them. In the article, the two views are included and explained. Your point of view is very respectable, but I am afraid that the wikipedia in not about your point of view alone. If you mean that no one of the builders made an opening ceremony with a bottle of champagne naming them "Wall of Shame", then you are absolutely right but think twice (please do it honestly) how many things are commonly known with names different than the official! Boninho 15:51, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I forgot about the list. How about quotation marks in titles such as Third world, Iron curtain, Hall of fame, America, Apartheid, Slavery, Racism, etc?. Would you go to ALL of them and similars changing names and links? Please have a look to this exhibition Cheers Boninho 16:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * This article's correct title is Wall of Shame, as parentheses are used to disambiguate between similarly-named articles, not to clarify the context of an article topic's usage. The first sentence of the article, not the title, should be what makes the subject matter clear. -Silence 18:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Panama Canal Fence of Shame
The wall separating the Panama Canal Zone from the rest of Panama was referred to as a "fence of shame." See Martyrs' Day. -- TheMightyQuill 09:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Fantastic link! great contribution! Cheers. Boninho 16:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Use of Hadrian's Wall
I don't believe that anyone really knows the precise reasons for Hadrian's Wall as the historical record surrounding the wall is quite sparse. The only reasoning for building the wall lays behind historical speculation based on extremely limited evidence. I think that it's inappropriate to state that it was built to keep out invaders. There are a great number of theories on why Hadrian ordered the building of the wall. --Strothra 04:44, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hadrian's Wall page would be the ideal place to discuss the evidence you mention. Boninho 19:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In fact, I notice that the Hadrian's Wall article is fairly specific about the reasons for its construction, and that all of the reasons (except for one, arguably, that being the need to physically define the border) involve keeping out invaders from the north. 6SJ7 21:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning
I moved here the following sign since it is inadecuate to highlite in such way the personal vision of what this article should talk about. In any case, the article as it is today referrs to what the users mention in the ugly sign.Boninho 17:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Moving this template to the talk page is incorrect according to WP:TM/CLEAN, which specifically says the tag goes on the article page and not the talk page. However, since you are questioning whether the tag is currently appropriate, and I did not place the tag, I will leave it for those who did, and/or other editors, to determine whether the tag should be placed back on the article page.  6SJ7 17:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, someone did. 6SJ7 18:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for bringing this to my attention. Boninho 23:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Bringing back the ugly tag with your strong and unpolite statement will not improve the article. If you are truly interested in improving it, please be my guest and start doing it. Will you? Making arrogant and sound statements in the cleaning tag that you know goes highlighted and in the very top of the article is a very dirty trick. Please start cleaning... Boninho 23:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Please have also in mind that the cleaning tag says "Please discuss this issue on the talk page" and not in the tag itself. It is true that the tag gives some space to specify what the cleaning is about, but in my opinion you are exaggerating this freedom since it appears that you use the tag as your private talk-page. Boninho 23:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Notes on rewrite
There are two general meanings to "wall of shame" covered in the article, and I moved an explanation to the intro, for clarity.

Much of the article focused on physical walls. Some of the historical background wasn't really relevant to the topic of the article, so I moved it elsewhere. Some of the content seemed to be trying to prove the point that modern barriers are only used as a means of civilian control, and this seemed a little POV and I presume it was original research because there were no references.

I removed this claim:
 * The last wall to be actually engaged in combat, as a defense measure, was Danevirke in the Denmark-German border, in the southern Jutland during the Danish-Prussian war of 1864, albeit with no success.

because I could think of at least one possible counterexample. (The Israeli West Bank barrier could be construed as an example of a defensive wall, since it does have a military purpose (to prevent suicide bombings and other attacks inside Israel). This does not to say there might not be other reasons for its constructions, or that it doesn't have effects on civilians.)  But the claim is rather strong, and is the sort of thing that definitely needs a reference to a reliable source if it's to be included.

Title capitalization
Shouldn't the title of this article be "Wall of shame"? Wikipedia uses downcase style, which only capitalizes the first word, unless otherwise required by English capitalization rules. "Wall of shame" is not a proper noun; it refers to the generic phenomemon, not any particular wall. -- Beland 02:32, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060502192419/http://www.cnn.com:80/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/09/1st.draft/ to http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/09/1st.draft/

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External links modified
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Notability
It is not clear either that the "walls" in this list are connected by sources other than the article's editors, or that there is sufficient sourcing for this term to support an article WP:NOTDICTIONARY. It appears to violate WP:COATRACK and should probably be deleted.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:05, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's an article: – don't know whether this helps much, just implying that some queries for viable sources may be beneficial before deciding whether this article can survive or not. See also prior deletion discussion (last of the templates at the top of this page). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:08, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Here's another one --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:12, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * And some books: –  –  – . The first three of these show there's certainly a connection to how the Berlin wall has been perceived. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:20, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * If Business Insider and/or Miami Herald count as reliable sources also this one: –  --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:26, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that if a quick-and-dirty search on the internet already reveals that much material (that is without even delving in-depth on most eligible content to base a Wikipedia article on) it would be hard to get this past AfD to turn Wall of Shame into a redlink. Maybe there's a DicDef issue, but with three books choosing "Wall of Shame" in their title to talk about the Berlin wall there's certainly enough material to avoid a dicdef problem. Note that in the previous AfD (see above) also a redirect to the separation barrier article was discussed, which didn't get any momentum in that discussion (don't see how that would be different now). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:40, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The Berlin material does look solid, minor, but solid. Could probably be merged into Berlin Wall, or the article could be renamed Wall of Shame (Berlin), because the serious problems come with the unsourced "other uses" section, which  reads like a WP:COATRACK.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:50, 1 August 2016 (UTC)*
 * (ec) Well there seem to be enough sources to replace unsourceable examples by sourced ones. Coatrack can be avoided by diligent writing and selection of examples based on sources (instead of editor's fancy without sources). There can be a problem with the dual meaning (shameful physical barrier vs. display of shameful things) but unless the page is split there is no reason to exclude either slant (of cource if sourceable as seems the case), nor to add a parenthetical disambiguator to a page name that seems the straightforward primary topic. None of the issues (that need attention, no doubt about that) are however sufficient to warrant a new AfD or RM: such procedures would most probably result in a strong indication to solve the issues with the article content & sourcing first. That can be operated without first draining energy to such procedures. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2016 (UTC)


 * This article has deep WP:SYNTH problems, in addition to being badly written and poorly sourced. See below on "original" use of this phrase.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Rewrote article as per sources and these two discussions, removing notability tag.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:57, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Primary and "original" use of this phrase
Not only is not at all apparent that, as article asserts, the "original" use of this phrase was to describe the Berlin Wall, it is not apparent to me that this is the primary use. It is an old term in use in Japan/Japanese, to describe that nations strong honour/shame culture. Ruth Benedict and other anthropologists used it in this way long before Wall was built. Yet another reason why this should be merged into Berlin Wall. WP:NOTDICTIONARY.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:23, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Searching on this phrase shows that the Japanese concept may indeed be the best sourced, but the phrase itself has been applied for a very long time and to just about everything. I like this formulation: "For a Christian, it seems, every frontier is a sin against the spirit, every wall a wall of shame..." (Scubla, Lucien. "The Bible, "Creation," and Mimetic Theory." Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 12/13 (2006): 13-19. .)  I think that about pegs it, some people of strong moral opinions, will call "every wall a wall of shame."  That does not mean tha tit should be a Wikipedia article.  Unless we prefer moving it to Wall of Shame (Berlin) to merging it to Berlin Wall.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:29, 1 August 2016 (UTC)


 * (e.c.2) Oppose merge, see above. If Ruth Benedict and others have used it in another meaning that is a strong indication not to merge with only one of the possible uses. The different meanings should be explained instead. There appear to be enough sources available. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Rewrote lede as per User:Francis Schonken's suggestion and as per sources. Removed the unsourced sections.  I still have doubts as to whether all of the sourced material is notable, and as to whether this rather common English phrase merits an article WP:NOTDICTIONARY, but at least now the article itself is composed of unsourced assertions.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

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