User:Hans Adler/Notability of bilateral relations

Principles
The guideline WP:Notability, and specifically its first section (the general notability guideline) describes sufficient and necessary criteria for a topic to deserve a separate Wikipedia article. It is often not clear how to interpret the general notability guideline in a specific area, and some of the larger areas have developed subject-specific notability guidelines that help with this task. The subject-specific guidelines … One of the most important subject-specific notability guidelines is unwritten because it is so simple: Per general consensus, all human settlements are inherently notable.
 * explain how the general guidelines apply to the subject;
 * establish more easily checked approximations to the general guidelines;
 * in some cases relax the general guideline (for typically encyclopedic areas; example: WP:ACADEMIC);
 * in some cases tighten the general guideline (for typically unencyclopedic areas; example: WP:PORNBIO).

There are reasons why articles whose topics don't meet the relevant notability guidelines can exist without being affected by deletion discussions:
 * an article may be a result of splitting another article per WP:Summary style;
 * the community may ignore all rules to keep an article (unwittingly or deliberately), for example because …
 * it covers several notable topics, replacing individual articles, or
 * its subject is generally considered sufficiently popular or important.

"Sufficiently popular or important" is the real criterion that motivates most of us when debating for or against an article's existence. However, people's opinions on this can vary dramatically. The notability guidelines are a sufficiently good approximation to real popularity and importance, as measured by the consensus of Wikipedians, and it leaves enough wiggle room, that WP:IAR rarely needs to be applied.

Existing consensus
There is consensus that
 * some bilateral relations are notable, and
 * not all bilateral relations are notable.

Consensus does not mean that everybody agrees. There seems to be a weaker consensus that
 * stubs about strong bilateral relations should not be deleted even when unsourced, and
 * stubs about barely existent bilateral relations should not be mass-created.

This leaves plenty of room for disagreement, since most pairings are significantly less notable than United Kingdom – United States relations and more notable than Malta–Vanuatu relations.

Alternatives to bilateral relations articles
That relational topics connecting two notable topics do not automatically inherit notability is demonstrated by Eye color of Barack Obama. But there are other special considerations for such articles, also stemming from their relational character.
 * If there is a large amount of information connecting X and Y, and if it is relevant to both X and Y, then it may be best to put it into a separate article which can then be linked from articles about X and articles about Y. United Kingdom – United States relations is an example of such an article. This topic has undeniable notability . But even if this were not the case – the article contains a large amount of non-trivial information that is relevant for Foreign relations of the United Kingdom and summarized in that article per WP:Summary style. It would make sense to use it in the same way for Foreign relations of the United States.
 * Similarly if there is a large amount of information connecting X, Y and Z. In this case it would be vital to have an article about the connections between all three topics. It would be counter-productive to spread the discussion over articles about X–Y, X–Z and Y–Z relations. This is particularly important for topics connecting even more countries. For example 21 states regularly produce news connecting them through their membership in NATO. It would be inefficient to spread and in part duplicate the discussion of these news in 21 "Foreign relations of …" articles. But it would be even more inefficient, to the point of eccentric, to spread the discussion over 210 bilateral relations articles. The natural solution is to discuss these issues at NATO, and to spawn off Relations between NATO members if the discussion gets too long.

As a general principle, it is often best to discuss several related marginally notable topics in a single article, perhaps together with summaries of existing articles on more notable equally related topics. An excellent example of this is Sino-Pacific relations. This article discusses the relations between both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan on one hand, and 14 Pacific states on the other hand, replacing 26 bilateral relation stubs and summarizing two bilateral relations articles (Australia – People's Republic of China relations and People's Republic of China – New Zealand relations).

Some factors affecting the creation and survival rates in this case

 * WP:WikiProject International relations
 * mass creation of stubs (this regularly comes up as a perceived problem in connection with the solid consensus that all human settlements are inherently notable)
 * the large number of potential articles of this kind: roughly 400 independent states, therefore roughly 200 x 200 / 2 = 20,000 such pairings (if each pairing had an article right now, that would amount to more than 0.5 % of all Wikipedia articles)
 * polarisation, due in part to seeing this as a battle in the war between "deletionists" and "inclusionists"

Past deletion discussions
See also WikiProject International relations/Bilateral relations task force/Articles.
 * 2 February: 10 no consensus
 * 18 March: keep, delete
 * 25 March: snow delete, snow delete, snow delete
 * 27 March: delete
 * 28 March: delete, keep
 * 30 March: delete
 * 31 March: speedy keep all, keep, delete, no consensus, keep
 * 2 April: keep, merge, no consensus
 * 3 April: delete
 * 4 April: delete, delete
 * 5 April: 4 delete, 2 no consensus
 * 6 April: keep, delete, delete, delete, delete
 * 7 April: no consensus, delete, keep, keep
 * 8 April: delete, keep, no consensus, keep, keep
 * 9 April: keep, keep, delete
 * 10 April: no consensus, snow delete, delete, delete, keep, delete
 * 11 April: keep, no consensus
 * 12 April: keep
 * 13 April: delete, snow delete, snow delete, snow delete, snow keep
 * 15 April: 4 delete, 2 remove, 4 delete, 8 delete, 5 delete, 1 remove, delete, no consensus, delete, delete, delete, 9 delete, 1 no consensus, keep, keep, keep
 * 16 April: snow delete, keep, keep, delete, no consensus, delete, delete, delete, delete, snow delete, delete
 * 17 April: delete, delete, 2 keep
 * 20 April: delete, delete, delete, no consensus, delete, delete, keep, no consensus, delete
 * 21 April: delete, delete, merge, delete, redirect, delete, no consensus, no consensus
 * 22 April: delete, keep, delete, delete, snow keep, no consensus, delete, no consensus, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, redirect, delete, delete, keep, delete, delete, delete, merge, no consensus, no consensus, delete, keep, delete
 * 23 April: delete, no consensus, delete, delete, redirect, delete, delete
 * 24 April: delete, no consensus, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, no consensus, no consensus, delete, delete, delete, delete, keep, delete, keep, delete, delete
 * 25 April: delete, delete, delete
 * 26 April: delete, no consensus, delete, delete, [