Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 US Russian cyber conflict


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. There is strong consensus that we shouldn't keep this article, with a majority favouring deletion. The general consensus is that the topic of the article is ill-defined and the content of the article is primarily politician gossip rather than cyber conflict. Editors who want a partial merge are welcome to ask me for a copy of the article history. Deryck C. 11:00, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

2016 US Russian cyber conflict

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This reads more like a news article and it's speculation at this point. There is no confirmation the United States will do anything in relation to this "alleged" cyber conflict by the Russians. Perhaps if this actually becomes a thing a better article can be created in the future, but for now this appears to be a case of WP:TOOSOON Andise1 (talk) 17:04, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:CRYSTAL. Nothing has truly happened yet and I doubt anything will come of this.  Pinguinn     🐧   19:04, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete This is just gossip, defiantly too soon Seasider91 (talk) 19:21, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose Mainstream media have reported extensively on this, VPOTUS directly quoted and involved, lead security people, etc. It's smoking for sure. At least hold it through the election as leaks continue to be published daily and are exceptionably notable. Its not partisan. A month after the election, if there is no credible evidence that the U.S. actually responded, can consolidate most all the articles listed in the "see also" section. Rick (talk) 21:00, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge to Democratic National Committee cyber attacks. I believe the topic at large has garnered enough coverage to be included, speculation or not, it is speculation in major news outlets and real published statements from real politicians. That said, right now the current page just seems to cherrypick some quotes related by the subject matter and toss them on the page. The name also seems arbitrary, and until the definitions of the event seem more clear, I would recommend a merge to the closest related topic, with the current name likely as the section heading. As of now, the US defines this controversy as related to "the recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona." These topics are currently covered on the DNC hack page, although if the US increases the scope of its accusations, then the overlap of the topics would no longer be perfect, and I can see this topic (even vaguely defined) as needing its own independent place. Yvarta (talk) 23:36, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - I might actually recommend the merge be to a section named "Governmental reactions." Yvarta (talk) 23:39, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Russia-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Selectively Merge to Democratic National Committee cyber attacks. The content is useful but it's WP:TOOSOON for a stand-alone article. "Governmental reactions" section is a good idea vs "Cyber conflict" which appears to be OR. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:50, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Selectively Merge to Democratic National Committee cyber attacks. The article violates WP:POV, as the blame on Russia is being disseminated solely by the campaign of Hillary Clinton, and those providing her with aid, comfort, and seek to advance her agenda (Barack Obama, DHS, NYT, WaPO, etc.). Just because Donna Brazile says the Wikileaks are "postmarked from Russia" don't make it so.Hidden Tempo (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:28, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete – Paranoid fluff. — JFG talk 04:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - Article is about cyber conflict between USA and Russia. It involves strong, direct, and fully public statments made between top spokespeople, VPOTUS, POTUS and the POTRF (President of the Russian Federation.) The topic is not about current U.S. election politics. Its about 2016 cyber warfare between two major powers that very much transcends and will exist outside of the US election. The VPOTUS has directly accused Russia of cyber warfare and promised retaliation. The POTRF has directly denied those allegations. Currently, the article should be focusing on the available evidence did they, or didn't they, and how? In time the VPOTUS promised US response is quite likely to emerge. The article is not bound by the topic "the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak" and can't really be shoehorned in there. In addition to DNC hacking there are the 1258 emails sent or received by then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton In addition there are 2,060 emails sent from or received by Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, including full transcripts of her paid speeches for Goldman Sachs     The focus should be much more on the hacking vs. the leaking. (The hacking is hard, the distribution/leaking is relatively easy.) Who is behind the hacking and how, and what is the covert and official positions of both governments? Cyber war rules of engagement are being established here. Long ago large countries became well armed for cyber war, this is the first time its strongly risen above the radar, the US has asserted that Russia "pushed the button here". Lets hope sophisticated countries don't commit stupid acts of provocation, or bravado, and any reaction to such idiocy are laser focused, highly contained and proportional. Rick (talk) 18:11, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note to RjLabs - might you be saying you think the topic currently deserves its own topic because the overlap is imperfect? In that case, perhaps the article is better staying in its current location, with a link from the DNC page, perhaps actually in a "governmental reactions" section or something similar. I personally don't think I'd agree with "this is the first time [cyberwarfare has] strongly risen above the radar," though, or that the event currently has any extra special import beyond its news coverage. China, for example, does this government-sanctioned "cyberwarfare" stuff all the time. But that said, I agree that strong words between politicians and political bodies tend to be notable, as they tend to garner the press required to pass the notability threshold, as with this case. There are major problems I would say with picking a title, but that isn't a problem for AfD per se, and could be tackled on the topic's talk page. I imagine the editors on the DNC hack page might also have viewpoints to add on that, and so it might be good to have that discussion in a place they would more easily encounter. Yvarta (talk) 15:29, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - looking more closely at the sources provided by Rick, note I disagree with making a umbrella topic for all recent hacking related to the US election. That topic seems a bit ridiculously broad, unless a "Whistleblowing and leaks in the 2016 US Presidential Election" was being used to help people navigate to individual events, or included distinctly separate events in a list format. Yvarta (talk) 15:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete::: Not one single government or non-government entity has provided evidence suggesting Russian involvement with the leaks, nor have the leaks themselves been denied, and considering Wikileaks decade long, 100% accuracy for leaks, it makes no sense to dedicate an entire Wikipedia page centered around gossip and slander originating only from one political campaign and it's supporters - Wikipedia is not a propaganda arm for partisan politics — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aheezay (talk • contribs) 09:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment Above is false. User was found to have vandalized 2016_Democratic National Committee email leak. See the history page. Article is not U.S. party politics whatsoever. It's about the official finding that a foreign country, Russia, has interfered with the U.S. election process, and what the U.S. response will be. Rick (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete should wait until an actual cyber war occurs. The thing about Assange losing his internet connection is OR (war is hell, right?) Geogene (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete' per WP:CRYSTAL on second thoughts, as this is for now an alleged conflict. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment. This looks like a synthesis at this point. Unless there are good sources about this subject as a whole, I would suggest to merge content into Cyberwarfare by Russia. My very best wishes (talk) 01:15, 21 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment. Again, suggest leaving article intact through at least 30 days after the election. Article is getting 200-300 page hits per day per wmflabs.org. Added additional cross references today showing the array of who has been hacked in 2016 (much more than just the DNC, so it doesn't shoehorn into that article well at all). Looks like Obama's email was hacked & materials released, and Kaine & Brazile are announced as also hacked as of today. That's quite an extensive collection of servers / email accounts broken into. Hillary mentioned 17 US agencies concurred that all of this is Russian State hacking but would like to see better documentation (definitive statements from each U.S. agency or a collective release) on that before adding. There are several more well published sources here, so can bring those in over time.Rick (talk) 03:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Agree. Rename to Russian cyber operations in the United States. My very best wishes (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment it might be of relevance to this deletion discussion that the likely next president of the USA (Hillary Clinton) stated that the following:
 * "It is pretty clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America. That you encouraged espionage against our people. That you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do. And that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race. So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election. We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing."
 * I also want to note that people calling it cyberattacks doesn't mean that it actually are cyberattacks, however notable people calling it such is notable in itself.
 * Also I doubt that it could be called "cyber conflict" because it seems like those are rather one-sided cyber attacks. Not sure if "attacks" is the right word here though and whether merging or moving would be a good idea. --Fixuture (talk) 21:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, this certainly adds notability to the subject, and yes, this page should probably be renamed or content merged, rather than outright deleted. My very best wishes (talk) 14:42, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, this certainly adds notability to the subject, and yes, this page should probably be renamed or content merged, rather than outright deleted. My very best wishes (talk) 14:42, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - I added a substantial new section on the Talk page Need to report Russian side accurately. Suggest dialog on content issues be placed on the Talk page, and have this dialog be restricted to delete, move, etc. Highly recommend reading the current article and equally important, the Talk page. The two backgrounder pieces on the Talk page are particularly valuable. Ambitious editors could extract several points from each and add to the article as it evolves. Rick (talk) 19:19, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:17, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - I've looked at the current page, and I'm baffled by the focus on Ecuador and Assange in the first section. How on earth is that related to Russian hacking, besides the fact that Wikileaks was the publishing arm for the some of the leaks? (hardly shocking, as Wikileaks is the most high-profile leak site available, and a natural go-to for hackers wanting highprofile press). But Wikileaks is not the only outlet that published this information (see The Smoking Gun and DCleaks), and so the current focus seems absurd - like starting an Edward Snowden leak page with a massive section on The Guardian. To clarify, according to current press Wikileaks and Russia are unrelated, excluding their coincidental involvement with silly season in the US this year, and their leaders' stated political preferences. I am half tempted to simply delete all the embassy information for being off topic (and for falsely insinuating that there is some Wikileaks/Russia conspiracy), so we can better clarify what this page is exactly supposed to focus on. Yvarta (talk) 16:41, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Response to Comment - Need to restrict discussion here to delete/merge. Since above is about content copied above and responded on the Talk page.Rick (talk) 23:54, 23 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete This article appears to contravene WP:NPOV a core content policy. The content reports opinions rather then demonstrating evidence in support of the topic. It also uses WP:SYNTHESIS when implying the John Kerry had anything to do with the Ecuador embassy cutting off Assange's internet connection. There is no evidence that John Kerry was involved and he has denied having anything to do with it. Also, why is this in this article? This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic and there has to be some far reaching tangential connection to make it fit - so this demonstrates wp:synthesis as well. Because this is such a bad fit for this article it appears to be a WP:COATRACK
 * Also, the article cherry picks comments by assorted people to support its view. The title of the article has a titillation factor and is WP:OR in this context. There is no stated U.S. - Russian cyber conflict in evidence, based on all the sources presented. This is mostly he said, she said, and they said. And the article is quite one-sided, weighted toward some attacks on US entities. Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS. Lastly, a few of the sources presented above (in this AfD) are some of the worst in regards to reliability. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:08, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.